Being Taylor is a Thing
by uo-chou
Summary: A Worm CYOA Story. When you make the wrong choice of disadvantages then you have to find a way to live with your poor decisions while trying to make the best of things. Having to live as a teenage girl when you're used to being an adult man sucks. Being Taylor really is suffering.
1. Chapter 1

**Being Taylor is** _ **a**_ _**Thing**_

 **Chapter 1 - Being Taylor is Lucrative**

Creating a set of power armor is supposed to be both an expensive and a very time consuming process, even for hypercognitive comic book heroes. The memories I inherited from Mr. Stark assured me that the obscene amounts of money he boasted and his own special brand of super-genius were the only things that had allowed him to design the first set of "proper" power armor so quickly after he came up with the concept, and that had taken him almost two months.

Even with all of his intelligence, knowledge, skills, and memories, Tony would never have believed a lower-middle class teenager with only pocket change to her name could create something that was even 5% as effective as his first suit in a shorter time frame. It was lucky for me that I was a big fat cheating cheater who cheats. I grinned; my lips were no longer "too wide", so I sported a much nicer smile these days.

Physically, _everything_ about my new body was much nicer than standard. My body- _Taylor's body,_ had once been that of a tall, thin, 15-year old girl with mild acne and a small bit of flab on her tummy. Honestly, the old Taylor was a fairly decent looking girl, better than decent if you liked them tall and lithe, who had some pretty terrible body issues. She'd had a pretty low opinion of her looks even though this universe lacked the torment and social isolation which characterized Taylor's place in canon. I could only imagine how _that_ Taylor felt about herself after going through the hell that was her first year and change of highschool.

Now, though, my body was _amazing_. After some work, of course. I was still obviously Taylor; I shared her basic facial structure, height, and hair type, but there the similarities ended. My face was perfectly symmetrical and I had fixed some of the features I didn't like, such as my too-wide lips, slightly too-long nose, etc, etc. I had also changed my body shape radically. I was lucky that Taylor was still within the age range where teenagers can "bloom", transforming nearly overnight.

If I had to be shaped like a girl, I decided, then I was determined to be the most attractive girl I could be. I had grown myself a nice, curvaceous figure over the course of a few months which pleased me greatly. My body now had large, firm breasts and a butt that was plump without being fat while being just the right shape to complement the light arch of my back and my widened hips. Taylor's legs needed little work, they were long and had fat and muscle in all the right places already. I simply had to slightly lengthen them and smooth them out a little. I had also, for the sake of my sanity, added an upgraded version of my old "equipment" to the existing parts, so to speak. It wasn't ideal, but the circumstances of my entrance to this universe required that I _be_ Taylor Hebert. It didn't hurt that futanari were "in" this season, _don't'cha know_! I guess it was skirts and dresses for me! I would have to do some thinking if I ever needed to go swimming; bikini bottoms would be rather… _insufficient_ , as well as awkward. Powers are amazing.

It was time to focus on work, so I mentally fortified myself. I was in my workshop trying to get my first set of Iron Man armor completed in time for the weekly Bazaar at the Lord's Free Market this weekend. I had already used every penny of my meager savings to rent a small booth, so if I didn't have a good costume to wear I was basically throwing it all away. There were several reasons I needed to be there, and money was only one, and a small one at that. I wasn't about to let a lack of hard work tonight ruin my plans.

The workshop was little more than a very large underground room with smooth marble walls and flooring with plenty of stone tables, workbenches, tables, and shelves covered with components and tools. Cubes, bars, and pellets of raw materials were stacked everywhere, sometimes all the way up to the 20' high ceiling. In one corner an extremely robust looking weight set sat on padded gym mat flooring next to an over-engineered homebrew treadmill. There was no entrance or exit in sight; I had no need for one after all. A comfy hammock was strung up in one corner for when I needed a nap. All-in-all a pretty spartan place, but so useful, and more importantly it was _mine._

I concentrated on the unfinished power armor hanging on the stand in front of me, my willpower a tool of its own as I invented with my mind and powers. Small finished components and pieces of raw materials hovered in the air all around the power armor's gleaming silver and metallic green finish. I flared my will and pieces started telekinetically slotting into place and welding themselves perfectly together while ingots transmuted themselves into alloys more useful for my purposes. Lead to Proto-Adamantium, Tin to Vibranium, and Aluminum to Platinum. The changing metals flew concentric rings around my work in progress, their value increasing as I laughed in glee as they themselves were shaped into more plating and components.

The MP3 player connected to the workshop's sound system played "Heart Shaped Box" by Nirvana in the background as sweat dripped from my brow due to the massive amount of multitasking I was doing at the moment. I was going to need to add some charges to that particular Thinker power soon; the level of work I would need to do on future projects was only going to increase as time went on and being able to pay attention to absolutely everything down to the molecular level was ever so useful. Smaller pieces became a part of the bigger whole as the fruits of my labor came together, and finally, after a long two hours, it was complete. Two weeks of back-breaking labor, experimenting, and creating new powers to do the work without millions or billions of dollars worth of high-tech tools and machines was finally complete. Until I needed to upgrade or do repairs, of course… To say nothing of armors I would need to create for future teammates if they needed/wanted it.

I sagged, plopping down tiredly onto a stone stool that flowed up from the ground to meet my derriere. I really, really needed to invest in some physical powers to prevent stuff like this from happening. So far I had increased my durability a great deal and removed my need for sleep, and my general health was blatantly superhuman, but due to an oversight I was still getting tired like anyone else, even if it took longer before I was completely spent. I decided that some upgrades were in order when I got my charges around midnight, as not collapsing from fatigue seemed like a good thing to make a priority.

I tinkered with a few more small projects until midnight rolled around. My charges came in around a minute and a half before midnight, which was a new record. Shattered Limiter was stupidly broken if there was that much increase after only a little over two months of having these powers. I idly wondered what kind of monster I would be in a decade?

 **.** **.** **.**

I felt much better after creating a power which granted me endless stamina and eliminated the need to eat, drink and breathe. It only took a single charge, believe it or not, and there was even a bit of "potential" left after I defined what I wanted it to do, so I was able to cram a goodly amount of regeneration into the package as well. Per SOP I put two charges each toward upgrading Power Manipulation itself, and two toward my jailbroken copy of Othala's power.

Two more charges were used to further empower one of my primary Thinker suites, which included enhanced deductive reasoning, short-term (battle) precog, localized clairvoyance down to the atomic level, and massive multi-tasking. Fully half of the charge went to the last one, boosting my ability to pay attention to multiple things at once by at least two orders of magnitude. I observed the millions of nearby hydrogen atoms in the air, my attention able to split and focus on each of them at the same time as if I was giving them all my full attention. I watched the single electron on each atom seem to teleport from point to point at the speed of light through their valence shells as my power's observation didn't cause eigenstates to collapse… unless I wanted them to. Yummy.

I mentally "tasted" PM after the charges integrated themselves. Every aspect of the power gained improvements, the biggest of which was to the range at which I could wield this mighty ability. The range was at least twenty or thirty meters more now, which was a nice boost. The depth and complexity of the abilities I could build with my 'Othala' power increased by a goodly margin, a much more dramatic improvement over PM; but then again it was a lesser ability despite being effectively unlimited.

I perused the new upgrades with my power sense; Othala should be able to generate some of the more powerful 'kinesis type abilities now, and maybe some of the more exotic powers I could imagine, I thought. At this rate of improvement I might soon be able to create some basic Trump-like powers with it. I wondered yet again if I shouldn't be putting more charges per day into Othala… but I again mentally reminded myself that the two powers synergized wonderfully, so it wasn't really needed at this point.

PM's more powerful abilities ran on the ten daily charges I received, allowing me to create new abilities and upgrade existing powers substantially, however even without those it had some amazing uses. It could provide unlimited amounts of tweaking, basic upgrading, and restructuring of powers, which is where the synergy with Othala came in. PM could also copy any power I found in the wild for my own use, suppress them, and even remove powers permanently. I could also destroy the Shards which gave parahumans their abilities and use the energy released by that process as a source of power to fuel the creation of a more powerful and less limited "Shardless" power.

When working with existing powers PM could, for instance, turn a mid-level pyrokinesis power into mid-level hydrokinesis or something similar, and with some work and a little elbow grease, even add extra features and abilities at the cost of weakening the primary power by a small margin. I could even combine individual powers into a greater whole, allowing for some awesome powersets. Othala, on the other hand, could provide an effectively unlimited amount of new powers, base material to provide a foundation on which PM could build by enhancing, modifying, and combining them. The only problem was that my modified Othala power wouldn't work on myself for some reason. I had tried everything I could think of short of throwing a stupid number of charges at the problem. PM estimated that it would take 10-12 charges to allow Othala work on myself, and I wasn't willing to make that kind of investment quite yet.

I knew that I had either fucked up when giving the specifics of how I wanted to "jailbreak" the power, or I didn't spend enough points to do so when I first got ROB'd. I could use the Othala powers on myself in a roundabout way, and I had, but it was pain in the ass and would require the cooperation of at least one other person unless I was willing to empower people around me randomly without their knowledge.

I had at first thought of handing out powers and then quickly ripping them away… but it didn't quite work out when I tried it. I had given two of the least dickish students at Winslow powers in order to copy them when I first worked out my limitations, and they both discovered their new powers in the first few minutes before their gifted abilities matured enough for me to copy and remove them. When Greg jumped up in the middle of class giggling wildly, and then ran from the room, I knew that my first attempt was shot all to hell. After I copied the power I had given him, I didn't have the heart to take it away from the pathetic little guy.

Later that night a new cape with powerful and versatile form of non-manton limited Telekinesis, wearing a fucking pantyhose stocking over his head, was spotted by no less than twenty forum goers on PHO. He was also filmed by at least five camera phones. Evidently he was propelling himself jerkily through the air while 'juggling' multiple half-ton pieces of rusted steel torn from wrecks in the ship graveyard… all while cackling like a loon. He had been saddled with the unflattering moniker 'Hosehead'... which he totally deserved for dressing like a fucking idiot. When I watched the videos of his 'first night' hijinks, I laughed so hard that I nearly cried. I gifted the silly bastard with a pure 'durability' "Brute" power the next day for entertaining me like that… I had a feeling that he was going to need it.

My second test was more circumspect. I snuck into my classmate Sparky's backyard in the middle of the night, hoping to empower him and then copy and remove the ability while he was sleeping. I used my short-range clairvoyance to look into his room, hoping I wasn't about to see something embarrassing. Or disgusting. Or both. The long-haired stoner kid was sprawled out in his unmade bed, wearing headphones and unmoving but for the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest. I used Othala to give him the Terrakinesis that I would later use to create my workshop, and spent a little time upgrading a tweaking it with power manipulation, sculpting the ability into something beautiful.

Lost in the intricacies of power-crafting, I failed to notice a stoned off his gourd but still awake Sparky sit up suddenly, bloodshot eyes wide and mouth hanging open in abject shock. When I came down from my fugue I winced, watching him rise from the mattress on the floor he used as a bed and then summon a beach-ball sized of granite from thin air. He chuckled playfully as he made the rock flow into different shapes and float around the room to and fro. I hung my head in shame… I was so bad at this! I copied the power and left Sparky, his face was filled with wonder as he summoned armor made of obsidian and used it to levitate himself through the air around his room.

That had been nearly a month ago, right when I was starting out, and I hadn't empowered anyone else since then. Greg and Sparky both seemed happy with their new powers, not to mention their new status as Wards. Both of them seemed more contented and self-confident than Taylor's memories ever remembered them being, and Greg was now _much_ less of a spaz. They were both starting to get into better shape now, too. Neither was really ripped yet, but Sparky's shoulders were broadening and Greg's arms weren't looking nearly as twig-like as they had previously. Sparky (Whose first name was actually Dale, go figure) was actually dating Madison now, who was much less of a bitch in this AU. She wasn't actually involved with Emma and Sophia at all. The world was a strange place.

 **.** **.** **.**

To date I hadn't told a soul about my powers. That would soon change, however; I had plans to bring my two best friends into the loop, I just needed to work up the courage to share my secret with them. Honestly, I wanted to do that from a position of strength, hence building my costume and preparing to expand my powers tomorrow at the Bazaar. I spent the rest of the night working on the signage for my booth, as well as some touch screen integrated computers which would allow customers to see the full breadth of products I was offering and select various options. I also doctored up some pamphlets and business cards; if I was really going to do this it could only help to get the word out widely.

It was also necessary to create a few custom powers for tomorrow, to make sure that no one decided to turn Lord's Free Market into a warzone when people found out what I was going to be selling. Defense by obscurity would be a nice start, I decided. I needed a power to keep the wrong kinds of attention off of me and my little business venture, so I used one of my remaining three charges to create a power that could produce bubbles of altered perception that I could anchor to locations, objects, and people.

These perception bubbles could be keyed to cause viewers to see different things inside of them based on selectable criteria, such as their emotions, appearance, group affiliation, status as parahumans, etc. It was a really useful power, and it stretched the limits of what a single charge could create. I had to scale the size of the bubbles down to a maximum of a 20m diameter spheres to allow this power to be created with only one charge, when I had originally wanted to have much larger areas of effect. Additionally, this ability would have to be a "striker" power, as one charge didn't have enough juice to allow bubbles to be deployed at range with all of the other features I wanted. This power should allow me to hide my myself and my booth from anyone who would contact the authorities or try to do me harm. People who were filtered would only see what I wanted them to, like an empty booth or an old woman selling poorly made nicknacks.

In the event that someone was able to bypass the perception filter, or in case of an attack at range, I would need a way to protect myself and any customers present. I was able to suppress powers at range, but that wouldn't help if someone flung a bus at my booth or used a firearm. Not to mention laser beams and waves of super-hot fire. I also suspected that coordinated grid-type searches or multiple points of view might also allow someone to pierce the perception filter.

It took both remaining charges, but I was able to make a power that created definable "peace zones" where the laws of physics were different from the regular world at large. Zones would cancel any attempts at violence with exactly equal applications of a power created "negative force"; this would cause limbs launching physical attacks to stop moving, and powers to fizzle out as they were activated. The same rules applied to weapons and other vectors that could precipitate violence. Beings outside of the zone who were planning to commit violence were teleported a few miles away to random locations as soon as they stepped into a zone.

Attacks launched from the outside of the zone had the energy propelling them absorbed to increase the power and duration of the zone as they crossed the border. It was a beautiful power, and I was extremely proud of it; I would never have been able to craft something like this in the beginning; I had learned a ton about how to properly use Power Manipulation since my arrival in this dimension. I was as ready as it was possible to get, now, and excitement coursed through my body as I prepared to depart.

 **.** **.** **.**

As the sun rose I telekinetically suited up in my new power armor, quickly using my 10-minute precognition window to repeatedly test the functions of the armor in only few seconds. Precog was so broken, I thought while grinning inside the climate controlled exoskeleton. As expected, the suit was flawless; when you can see down to the atomic level it's pretty hard to miss manufacturing flaws. Design flaws were another matter, but the centuries-old mind of an ancient, nearly invincible Tony Stark I had absorbed was so experienced with the technologies involved that I had no fears there. I connected the modular weapons I had created to their hard-points and folded them into the armors space-warped interior for now. Out of sight, out of mind.

I used my own power-granted hammerspace to gather up all of the bits and bobbles for today, and then teleported over half of a mile up and over a mile to the east. I appeared in the air over the bay, the shore just visible in the distance. The sky shone a beautiful gold and red color as the rising sun reflected off of several thin clouds on the horizon. I admired the view for a moment, my eyes capable of seeing further into each end of the electromagnetic spectrum than human eyes ever had, rendering the sunrise more glorious than I would ever be able to describe. The suit's optics and sensors only further augmented the sight.

Blinking, I set a small perception bubble over myself rendering me extremely boring and unimportant to any observers, and orienting myself toward Lord street, I took off like a shot at just under the speed of sound. No sonic booms for you today, Brockton bay. I giggled at my inadvertent rhyme.

It took less than a minute to reach the Bazaar. Setting down amidst the chaos of various merchants and helpers preparing their booths, I landed and took in the environment. No one paid me the least amount of attention. I looked around the sidewalk at the corner of Lord St. and 12th where I had set down. Lord street was blocked off from 10th all the way up to 16th for the weekly Bazaar, and preparations were in full swing.

Burly youths carried boxes and barrels from trucks and vans of all sizes and varieties while proprietors set up tables, canopies, and booths of all shapes and levels of improvisation. The various salespeople here had products ranging from a small push-card carrying homemade coffee and donuts-mostly purchased by other sellers at this point, to a large garishly decorated canvas tent selling hand crafted maple and oak furniture, with everything in between.

I walked the two blocks down to my space on the 14th street block of Lord St. and looked over the little lot that I would be setting up on. I had rented the corner of a parking lot, located in front a an antique store, which was just in front of the sidewalk. The space was fairly small, but it was a pretty good spot with lots of foot traffic. There was no way to get electricity to the spot, which made it less desireable in general, but decreased the price to the point that I could just barely afford to rent it for the day. I had maybe a hundred and twenty square feet of space, which was more than I needed really, but which I could utilize. The bigger and more impressive my 'booth' looked, the more interest it would generate.

I attached a perception filter to my space and then defined a peace zone surrounding the location as far as I could go, which overlapped other nearby booths and a good portion of the street, as well as the building behind me. That should be plenty to insure the safety of my customers, as well as myself.

Now that I had setup the perception filter, the only people who could see me were the ones who didn't want to fight... or to call the PRT. I could finally get to work. I smiled, and drew on terrakinesis to rapidly assemble a small building out of black marble. The stone I summoned was streaked with cloudy quartz, and contained bright veins of gold and silver throughout. When I was done, my stand resembled a tiny cottage with a pointed roof made out of rich, dark stone. The front of the little building had an open standard sized doorway off to the side, with the rest of the space devoted to a giant picture window which showed off the interior. Inside the store, there was a marble counter running the width of the building. There were four short stone stools, which allowed customers to sit at the counter. In front of each stool I placed one of the touchscreen computers; they contained my catalog of products.

I filled the picture window with smooth, completely transparent quartz which I summoned with my ever handy terrakinesis. Giving it a nod of approval, I then raised a thin eight foot pole-shaped length of black marble with another section sticking out at a right-angle from the top. The result was shaped like an upside-down capital "L" rising from the ground less than a foot from the exterior wall near the door of the building. I hung the sign I had made earlier today from the horizontal bar at the top, attaching it by extruding marble hooks from the bar and letting it hang from the mountings I had attached at the top when fabbing the sign back at the workshop.

"Superpowers for Sale" proclaimed the old-timey oaken sign. I wanted to be upfront about what I was offering, after all. I gave my "stand" a final once over, and then looked around me warily. Fully half of the people within view were stock-still, staring at me and the marble structure I had risen and furnished in less than ten minutes. A few of the pedestrians who were in groups were muttering excitedly to each other in low voices. Several people were noticeably ignorant of my presence and accomplishments, including the girl setting up a table only feet from my stand. She glanced up at the people staring at me across the street, a frown in place, then looked at me for a moment, her eyes sliding past the store I had made, unseeing. She shook her head at the gwakers obvious lack of sense. A superior smirk on her face, the young woman went back to arranging the knitted crafts she was selling. I chuckled at the effectiveness of my new power, and entered the shop, sitting myself on a surprisingly comfortable stone stool behind the counter.

I had only moments to wait before I got my first two customers. A tall, slightly overweight man in his mid-thirties walked tentatively inside, bearded head swiveling around as if on a pivot, trying in vain to pierce the secrets of the marble building. His sun tanned skin was weathered, and he wore a thick flannel shirt along with jeans and worn but well cared for workboots. His hands had more calluses than the Empire 88 had nazis, and that was saying something. I smiled beneath my armor; this was one of my people. He may even have worked for my dad at the dockworkers association.

With the working man was a boy nearly half a decade younger than me, maybe eleven or twelve years old at most. He was dressed in a Legend T-Shirt partially obscured by a carhartt jacket and jeans with his own pair of scuffed boots. The brown-haired child was smiling widely, hand gripping his father's with enough force to whiten his knuckles. In his excitement the kid had grabbed his father's horny mitt after they cleared the door, something kids his age began rigorously training themselves not to do in preparation for the full antisocial surliness of teen-hood that was shortly to come. He proved my internal musings correct when he quickly disengaged once he noticed what he had done. The father and son duo made their way to the counter, the father's nervousness as visible as the rays of the still-rising sun which shone through the quartz display window. He looked like he wanted to speak, but he couldn't quite find a way to start.

'My first customers!' I thought with an internal "squee" of delight. Hey! I could squee if I wanted to! I was a girl now, after all! Sort of... I gazed at the two people looking around nervously, and flawlessly launched into my semi pre prepared greeting. Social powers for the win!

"Good morning gentlemen, and welcome to Brockton Bay's one and only Superpower Emporium. My name is Grant, and I will be your bestowal specialist today." I paused to sweep my arm toward the stools and the now active touch screens in front of them before continuing. "Please feel free to place your posterior at one of our power planning pedestals and peruse our catalogue, the 'Power Package 'Pedia' to see what exciting opportunities await you!"

"Uh, is this some sort of joke, or a TV show or something?" asked the man, intense curiosity and slight apprehension marring his face. Junior, of course, was already seated and tapping away on one of the screens eagerly. The kid's face was filled with abject delight.

"Of course not, my dear sir." I spoke, my every movement reinforcing my words. I had to be lavish with my gestures if I wanted to add the weight body language to the conversation, covered in power armor as I was. "Using an amazing new process pioneered by myself, the wonders of parahuman powers are now available to the common man. The process by which we bestow powers is fast, effective, and painless. The powers you purchase today are guaranteed to be permanent and free of any complications or side effects, unlike the so-called "powers" those hacks at Cauldron supply."

Junior was still tapping away, a gigantic smile on his face and fire in his eyes as he played with different power combinations. The tall man blinked at me, a shocked look on his face. I could tell that he was still curious though, and more than a little interested. "Is that so?" he asked.

"It is indeed!" I exclaimed, the bottom of my closed fist gently meeting the flat of my other hand. "Listen," I said, my right hand coming up to stroke the 'chin' of my helmet, the other one at my hip. "I can tell that you're skeptical, but you and your boy are my first customers. Take a look at the catalogue and pick out a power set for each of you, and I'll take 95% off of the total price for being the very first people to set foot into my new business." I laughed. "Good taste like that deserves a reward!"

The man, Jason Brown, as he later introduced himself, laughed along with me and agreed to take a look. A short time later he and his son, Leroy, had decided on the powers they wanted after asking several questions and some explanations. I wirelessly interfaced with their computers and caused the packages they selected to be sent up to the enormous screen that took up over half of the back wall behind the counter.

"So Leroy, you're decided on the Alexandria Plus package with the Quantum Blaster add-on, right?" He nodded excitedly, looking toward his father. The man patted him on the head fondly and nodded toward me once. I smiled. "Did you want to upsize that order with a side of Regeneration for only $99 dollars more? That's the pre-discount price, of course, so it would only add an extra $4.50 to the total cost of the package with your "first customer" coupon code."

"Can I dad?" he whined, his shining eyes seeming to grow two sizes. His father sighed, shaking his head slowly with a small smile on his face.

"Ok, fine," said Jason, mock exasperation coloring his tone. "Kids, right?" he asked, looking at me.

"Excellent choice Leroy! And for you Jason," I said, pointing to the screen, "I think we've decided that the Kinetic Knight package fits your needs the best, right?" After a nod of his head I continued. "You have Metallokinesis and Electrokinesis selected for the base abilities, but I see here that you haven't yet filled the Brute and Miscellaneous slots in the package… Might I suggest Passive Inertial Dampening for the Brute ability? It's a deceptively powerful damage reduction power, and if you're going to be using Metallokinesis as a mover ability, it would be extremely useful there as well." I pulled up the relevant ability on his screen, and he studied it for a moment, his eyes going wide.

"Oh, wow... Yeah, let's go with that one!" he said, excitement coloring his tone. "And I was thinking, for that Miscellaneous ability… do you have something that'll let me heal up other people if they get hurt?" he asked hopefully.

"We surely do! There's an option called First Aid Field which is exactly what you just described. It's not going to make you another Panacea, but it's still incredibly useful. It allows you to make a spherical force field that slowly heals whoever is inside of it. It doesn't work on illnesses or genetic conditions, but it's great for regular wounds. Do you want me to include that in your package?" I asked. He nodded an affirmative. "And finally, did you want to upsize your package with a side of Regeneration as well?"

"Well shoot, I guess I will, it just sounds too useful not to." said Jason, a huge grin on his face. "So… now's the part I won't like. What's all of this going to cost?"

"Now," I said, "bear in mind that I am going to be giving you real, live, _permanent_ superpowers…" I used my very best _serious business_ voice here. "The regular price for the package that Leroy selected, with options, is $3299.00, which is a _steal_ compared to what those crooks at Cauldron would gouge you for. Your package, Jason, with options, would normally be $4099.00. Comparable package offered by Cauldron, if they could even offer them, which they can't, would be in the _millions_ of dollars, and their process includes the possibility of horrendous side effects. So, even if you had to pay full price you would be getting the bargain of the century."

I paused for a moment, their attention focused on me. "Since you are my first customers, your price is only 5% of the numbers I just quoted you. You get a full 95% off the top. Both powersets can be yours for the insanely low price of only three hundred sixty-nine dollars and ninety cents. That's it. For less than what you spend on a month of rent you can buy superpowers which will allow you to earn an excellent living for a _lifetime_. The Protectorate, private security, become a rogue… take your pick, teams will literally be clamboring for you with powers like these." I posed dramatically, my words as sharp as Kaiser's blades. "You literally can't afford _not_ to buy these powers at the price I'm giving you today."

"Do you take debit?" asked Jason, pulling out his wallet.

 **.** **.** **.**

My first two customers left the store, heads held high and temporary domino masks decorated with my logo, the letters "SPE" in silver and green, adorning their faces. A crowd of at least fifty people had gathered out front and many were talking amongst themselves. A couple of boys from a local scout troop were selling hotdogs and bags of chips from a cart to the people waiting to come inside. Several people were reading the pamphlets and business cards I had placed in the dispensers near the door. I did a quick check, and yes, I would have to restock them. I did so quickly and efficiently, topping up both from my hammerspace.

As he cleared the crowd and stepped onto the street, Jason gestured to a heavily dented aluminum garbage can across the way and it flew toward him, compressing and twisting itself into a thick, wide disc as it did so. As he stepped onto it, metal from the disc lept up, wrapping around his feet and calves to anchor him in place. Languidly, he floated into the air, his son rising up to float beside him. They did a victory lap around the block while Leroy whooped with joy before speeding up and disappearing into the skyline. The crowd watched in silence, then broke into a frenzy as people pushed forward trying to get to the door. Thankfully the "peace zone" slowed them down and ensured that no one got jostled or hurt.

I rose into the air until I towered over even the tallest men present. "Everyone, please; your attention!" I said, my voice raised. The crowd quitened. "Thank you. There are powers enough for _everyone_ , and you will all have your turn to shop. Presently I am ready for the next group of customers, so please form an orderly line composed of groups of four based on when you got here. Please share around the pamphlets to get an idea of which power packages you might want to inquire about, and to make sure our prices are within your budget." I paused, my hands meeting hips. "Anyone acting in a rude or unruly way _will_ be asked to leave. We do not brook ill manners at the Superpower Emporium. Thank you!"

Business was good that day. When I closed up shop, hammer-spacing the building so that I could re-use it later, I had sold thirty-four separate powersets at full price after those first two discounted ones. There were a little over twice that many prospective customers who came into the shop, but many of them wanted power for nefarious reasons so I had to find ways to dissuade them. I was only interested in giving powers to people who would become heroes or rogues, or otherwise not use their abilities for evil or crime. Thankfully, there was a power for determining their intent. I had split some of the groups up and had the individuals I wasn't planning to sell powers to come in together four at a time, right at the beginning, so that I could dismiss them as fast as possible. Once a group of undesirables was inside I subtly altered their memories and sent them on their merry way smiling, back to wherever they came from, their names now added to the list of people who couldn't perceive my shop.

Between cash and the money taken in by the payment processing service that I was using for debit and credit cards, I had made a grand total of $122,594. It wasn't bad at all for my first day in business, really. Plus there were thirty-six new parahumans now, all of them either planning to do good or help the world in some way. I smiled beneath my power armor as I rocketed away into the heavens late that afternoon, three dozen new powersets (plus another fourteen that I had snuck into customers covertly before copying and deleted them) were now mine to command. No... it really hadn't been a bad day at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Being Taylor is** _ **a**_ _**Thing**_

 **Chapter 2 - Being Taylor is Complicated**

I got home a little before dinner, which was awesome because mom was preparing her famous homemade chili. It was my absolute favorite out of all the delicious meals that she knew how to cook. Annette busily bustled around the kitchen, the living room, and the laundry nook as I walked into the house, doing twenty different things all at once. Unlike most mothers, who were able to multitask through an inexplicable ability unique to their status as moms, Annette was doing several things at the same time using a parahuman power.

"Hi sweetie! How was the sleepover? Did you and Emma have a good time shopping on the boardwalk today?" One of Mom's bodies asked while stepping forward to give me a big hug while another picked up the backpack I had just slung off of my shoulder off of the floor and up to my room. I felt a twinge from my conscious for lying to her about what I had been up to recently, but I was an adult in a teenaged body, and I was willing to lie in order to get the freedom that I needed to live my life the way I _needed_ to.

"Yeah, mom, I really did." I replied, leaning into her warm embrace, smiling happily while wrapping my arms around her to hug her back. Mom's hugs could still make me feel like a little kid sometimes. Or rather they invoked Taylor's memories of being embraced by her as a child, which I sometimes had trouble telling apart from my own. Well, I guess they were all "mine" now. Still, memories of my past life and memories from Taylor's had subtly different flavors which took some practice to readily differentiate.

The Taylor in me really wanted to come clean to her about everything. The two Hebert girls had always been honest with each other, about pretty much everything. It was a bad idea. Even after months here, I was still worried that Annette would find out that I wasn't really her daughter, that I had somehow taken over her body. There were parahumans that could do things like that, and I had no doubt that she would kill me in an instant if she thought I had eaten her daughter's mind and was wearing her body like a summer dress. It wasn't really like that, though… I hadn't take over Taylor's body so much as the two of us had merged into a single being.

Sure, I had come out ahead in the deal, but that was because I had almost two decades on her in terms of memories and life experience. The mental chimera that we resembled was weighed almost 2:1 in the direction of my previous male self, causing the resultant personality to more closely match my, _his_ , old one... but with bits and pieces of Taylor scattered about, as well as more substantial blocks that were purely _her_. One of the things that was almost completely retained from Taylor was the love, admiration, and respect she had for her mother. After knowing Annette for a while I had agreed, she was an amazing person. 'A much better parent than Danny.' I thought darkly. The Taylor in me, with the benefit of my knowledge, sadly agreed.

Annette was thirty-seven but looked like she was in her late twenties at most, and had been mistaken for my older sister on more than one occasion. She was quite tall for a woman at just a hair over six feet tall, and her curly black hair was very similar to my own. When she wore it down her hair fell below her waist and encircled her head like a dark, waving halo. Her body was a tad thicker than my newly enhanced form and curvy in all the right areas. She was never afraid to steer away from what she considered the _Right Thing_ , and she helped those she considered disadvantaged as much as she was able to. Mom occasionally gave strangers a piece of her mind when she thought they were doing something wrong, especially when she saw a bad situation involving a child. I suppose she must have been fairly intimidating to those who didn't know her, but to me she was nothing but sweet and kind.

Annette was an awesome mom and a good friend as well. Even without the benefit of the emotions and experiences I had gained by merging with Taylor I was able to appreciate her enormously for the things she did. Mom was always willing to listen to me, and she always made my happiness and health her top priority. It was impossible to dislike someone whose primary goal in life was to help you grow and succeed no matter what it took. I liked Annette as a person, too; she was a smart woman with quick wits and a wicked sense of humor who was genuinely fun to be around. Taylor's memories told me that Danny had been fond of telling anyone who would listen to him that he was the luckiest man in the world that she had chosen him to be her husband.

Mom had been a parahuman for around three years now, and had triggered when Danny died in a car wreck after leaving in the middle of a big fight between the two of them. Taylor had been in the room at the time to witness it. I pushed the metaphorical "play" button on the memory for only the second time. It was so emotionally charged that I hadn't been able to view it again before now.

...

Taylor was moping in front of the television after an argument between her parents when Danny called Annette on his cell phone to apologize. He had cooled off by driving around town for a while, and he was headed home. The two adult Heberts were chatting amicably when her mother heard the screech of metal-on-metal and shattering glass, then silence. Annette had called out Danny's name several times without receiving a response before pausing, her face rapidly paling as she went unnaturally still. Then she _screamed_ , the sound terrifying Taylor in its intensity, before Annette went silent and fell to the ground, her body still. She was only out for a few seconds, Taylor just managing to reach her mother before the woman woke.

Springing to her feet, Taylor witnessed Annette's body seemingly _tear in half_ , splitting into two identical copies of her mother which then pulled apart. The clones fell away from each other, becoming whole bodies. It was like watching a piece of fabric being torn in half, only each half was the same as the original. One of the bodies ran through the house into the living room, then jumped through the large picture window. Taylor gaped as she saw her mother shoot into the sky, blood flecks trailing, and the other rapidly fading into the distance. The other clone simply disappeared with a loud popping sound, leaving the young girl all alone. Taylor, more shocked than she had ever been in her life, had fallen backward onto her rear. She sat on the living room floor in shock until both copies of her mother returned, over an hour later. Annette had come home alone later that night. Explaining about Danny's death and apologizing for leaving Taylor behind caused both mother and daughter to break down, holding each other for comfort. They clung to each other, Taylor's smaller form being held between Annette and her duplicate, until they had cried themselves to sleep on the living room sofa. Ever since then it had been just the two of them… for a given value of "two", anyway.

...

After that night Annette had never had the desire to use her powers for anything other than everyday life, using them to help with various extra jobs she took. She usually had at least three part-time jobs at any given time. This was in addition to her professorship at Brockton Bay Community College, her primary, and original, occupation. The only time she had used her powers in anger was when she saw a crime or disaster in progress with obvious victims she could help, or to defend herself and others. This didn't change even after the potency of her abilities increased tremendously when she suddenly "second triggered in her sleep" a month and a half ago. The change to her power had actually been me making her parahuman ability shardless to enhance it, then broadening the power and scope of her ability greatly, by using three PM charges.

Annette's power had been nearly top-tier even before I boosted it, "A-rank" easily. Now it was simply ridiculous. Originally the dark-haired mother had been able to split her body apart into multiple permanent clones, each an exact copy of Annette's body on the night of the trigger, minus the clothing she wore and objects she carried close to her person; those were copies of whatever she was wearing and carrying during her latest split. She usually had six active bodies, but she could go as high as ten at a time temporarily if she really pushed it.

As the amount of clones rose beyond six the need to merge them back together grew in intensity sharply with every subsequent fork. Each clone was a fully functional copy of the original in every way, and they were all linked together into a single consciousness, allowing Annette to exercise unreal levels of coordination and multitasking with all of the extra brainpower to use as she saw fit. On top of that each clone she made would manifest a random superpower. If a clone got injured or died it acted exactly like a normal body would. The copies were capable of losing blood, getting cut, breaking bones, and horrifyingly, upon death the bodies decomposed just like any other corpse. Mom's clones could theoretically be left to heal on their own when injured, but unless the injuries were very superficial or she the body's power especially useful, Annette would reabsorb any damaged bodies and then spawn new undamaged copies.

When two of Annette's copies merged, the process of the two bodies combining allowed whichever of the two she wanted to heal itself to perfect physical condition. The body which had been healed would gain a temporary boost to strength and stamina when the merging was complete and the parahuman ability the remaining copy wielded would be temporarily upgraded in some way relating to the power of the body which had been absorbed. Taylor's mother had famously had one of her pyrokinetic clones absorb an aerokinetic copy, giving the resultant avatar the ability to create small flaming tornadoes.

Mom's parahuman power was tremendously cool and extremely broken, to the point that the local Protectorate leader, an extremely cheesy teleporter named Mouse Protector, had practically begged her to join their roster of heroes on more than one occasion. Mom had of course declined, telling the heroine that her duty was to her daughter first, second, and third. When the Protectorate head had pressed her for additional reasons, explaining that I would be well-protected, mom had explained in no uncertain terms that going out in a silly mask and costume and attempting to _nonlethally_ take down criminals who would gladly put her in the hospital or the morgue was extremely dangerous to her health and to that of civilian bystanders as well. She explained that she already had a purpose in life, taking care of and her daughter and raising her well. With her husband Danny gone, Annette had no intention of dying and leaving me to fend for myself. Surprisingly, Mouse Protector got the message and backed off. I admired the Protectorate heroine for that; mom was worth two or three other parahumans on her own at the very least, and would have boosted the Protectorate's offensive power greatly. So far as I know the Protectorate and PRT hadn't made any further attempts to recruit her since then.

...

I had recognized the hidden peril of Annette's power shortly after my arrival. She fell into a very dangerous category; powerful enough to be extremely desireable to organizations looking to recruit, but not quite up to defending herself from S-Class threats. People like Lung or the Triumvirate could probably defeat her, if not very easily, and she was as vulnerable as anyone to teams of regular capes working in concert. Eventually someone would get clever or lucky and would either take her as their newest prize or kill her outright for refusing to work for them. I wasn't about to let that happen.

Once I recognized the problem I was determined to fix it, the part of me which had been Taylor refused to lose her last parent when there was something I could do to fix the situation. This was the reason behind enhancing the clone-using mother's already formidable abilities. After my tweaks and upgrades, Annette's power was a work of art. Starting with the basics, I had increased the number of clones that she could create to the low fifties if she really, _really,_ needed them, but she was most comfortable having around thirty copies active at a time. Additionally, each clone now had a "soft" Brute package which rated maybe a three on the PRT's scale. The clones were around four times tougher, stronger, and faster than regular humans, and they could now slowly regenerate damage. This didn't count toward the individual power each of them received, however, so each copy was a low Brute on top of whatever other ability they gained upon their creation.

I had tried my hand at fixing the "random power" aspect of her clones. It had taken nearly a full PM charge to enhance this aspect of her power, but now when she split off a clone Annette could picture what kind of power she wanted and the clone's ability would roughly resemble what she had in mind. The more vague she was about the power, the greater the chance a clone's ability would match what she specified. If she mentally thought "Blaster." while making a clone, it would always have blaster powers. Something like "zero-point energy constructs" would usually cause the clone to have a random power that had little to do with what she specified. The more often she made clones with a particular powerset or theme, the more easily she could create clones with similar powers in the future. It was interesting to see what worked and what didn't, and we sometimes played around with trying to make clones with interesting new powers together.

The abilities mom's clones manifested were also much more powerful now. Previously, mom had been lucky to get a clone with powers the PRT threat assessment scale would classify as a three or four. She sometimes had to create and merge new clones several times in order to get an avatar with a strong or useful power. Throughout her adventures with various clones Annette never went without having at least two different kinds of Movers in her roster, preferring to have both a teleporter who could carry passengers, as well as a quick moving flyer of some variety. This allowed her to transport her other clones and deploy them to a single location quickly, and to have situational mobility as well.

Since the upgrade mom's clone bodies usually sported powers that would be rated about four or five in strength on the PRT scale, and sometimes even higher. The rating didn't quite correspond, as mom's power was now shardless, thus being more conceptually based than powers granted by Entities. Mom would be an absolute monster to fight these days; it would require something like a power-suppressing Trump ability, or a whole team of normal capes with a large amount of unpowered soldiers to support them, in order to take her on now that she could field over thirty copies with strong powers that she could choose. Mom was also getting a lot more utility out of her power these days when it came to regular tasks. As she practiced diligently with her expanded powerset, the likelihood of manifesting the specific ability she tried for increased, letting her fill her roster of bodies with powers useful to her life and livelihood such as telekinesis, plant control, super strength, flavors of hypercognition, and too many others to name.

Once Annette had a body with a useful ability that she wanted to retain she could keep it around indefinitely without a problem, and there were absolutely no range restrictions. This tied in with probably the biggest secret about her power; Annette didn't have an "original" body anymore; each body was the same as every other. They could be created and destroyed without affecting her consciousness at all. She and I expected that it would take the death of every one of her clones at the same time to kill her permanently, and as she could generate more clones from any one of her iterations this was unlikely. She could also absorb clones into any of her bodies if she wanted to get rid of them. In the past clones with less useful powers had been used to heal the more useful bodies when they got injured, however with injuries much less common now due to each body was a Brute with regeneration she no longer needed to waste clones with good powers to heal others except in emergencies. When a clone came out with a weak or sub-optimal power Annette still absorbed it, however, and kept making and absorbing clones until a body with the power she was trying to create, or a very strong or useful ability was created.

Each body required that its physical needs be met, the same as any regular human body. This was the main reason Annette had at least three extra jobs in addition to her primary occupation at all times. Feeding several people could get quite expensive, she had quickly found. After her power upgrade, however, she had lucked out and one of the first copies she split off from herself had an uncommonly strong chlorokinesis power capable of growing several acres full of food crops in a few hours. They had eaten extremely well since then, and their collection of herbs and spices had never been fresher or more varied. Annette had also taken to growing a large surplus of fruits and vegetables so that she could take them down to the Sunday Farmer's Market near the boardwalk (an entirely different event than the Lord's Free Market Bazaar). Between the free food and the money she made selling the perfect quality and exquisitely vine-ripened produce, she would have been able to drop all of her part-time jobs if she had really wanted to… but there was no sacrifice involved in working as many jobs as she could get, and Taylor's college fund needed filling, so she continued on as normal.

Capes attempting to kill or capture Taylor's mother for her power had been very infrequent since she had proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was _not_ an easy target. These days individual villains and villainous organizations like the E88 or the ABB left her alone. This was mainly because after one specific incident there was no longer a gang called the Archers Bridge Merchants in existence. The fight that had ended the drug dealing gang had happened before Annette's "second trigger" as well, and since word of that had gotten around gangs were actually fleeing if they spotted one of her multitude of selves these days.

The Merchants had made an all-out attempt to capture mom last year in order to remove her as a threat, or to add her to their roster of capes; we still weren't sure which. As the most powerful unaffiliated cape in town, several groups had their eye on mom since her civilian identity had been discovered. There had been an unfortunate camera phone recording, made by a stupid kid, that had been uploaded onto the Internet. Annette had been filmed saving several people from an apartment building fire she had just happened to be nearby to a little over a year ago, and it had actually been one of the teenaegers she rescued that night who had revealed her unmasked face to the world. The Archers Bridge Merchants were the gang most desperate for manpower at the time, as they only had three capes, none of whom were very versatile or great in a fight. It was a sad fact that Squealer was their best parahuman and heaviest hitter thanks to the ugly, heavily armed vehicles that she somehow managed to cobble together despite her rampant drug addiction.

After integrating with Taylor I had a pretty good idea of what had happened between Annette's depiction of events and the news coverage of the fight's aftermath. I had supplemented this information by visiting the site of the assault. I had created a post-cog power that let me see past events while at the location where they occurred as if I had been there in person to aid me in this endeavor. My thoughts turned back to the panoramic display I had seen that day. Annette had shown how much of a badass she was, but it had somehow been horrifying to watch at the same time. It was insane that one person, even a parahuman, could fight like she did that day. It made me wonder what I would be able to do if I really cut loose. I had, of course, copied mom's ability, thought I hadn't really trained with it yet. I was in the process of modifying my copy of mom's power; in the event I came out as a parahuman it would be with a variation of her superpower.

...

When she learned about what had happened during her conflict with Brockton Bay's most notorious drug dealing group, Taylor had been equal parts livid and horrified. The Brockton Bay Gazette had been on the scene just minutes after Annette left, and they had printed photos of everything in a gigantic front-page spread. The printed pictures had included several that featured the mangled and burnt corpses of the attacking merchants, which had gotten the paper fined by both the City of Brockton Bay, as well as the state, for violating public decency statutes. Seeing the paper had sent poor Taylor into hysterics. She had stayed home from school for a full week with at least one of her mother's bodies never out of her sight for a single moment, even going so far as to crawl into bed with her mother at night, snuggling between a sleeping pair of Annettes for comfort.

The mother and daughter had shared several long conversations about the situation that had led to the attack, and not a few shed tears, and their relationship was all the stronger for it. Taylor had promised herself at that point that she would one day trigger, and that when she became a parahuman she would become powerful enough to not only protect her mother from attacks and forced recruitment attempts, but to protect everyone she cared about from anyone or _anything_ that would date to threaten them, forever.

...

Interestingly enough, with my presence here and the powers I brought to bear, she seemed to have fulfilled her vow. As I sat down to dinner with mom my mind was still deep in thought. Annette giggled as I missed while ladeling her delicious chili into my bowl, the rich brown dish slopping onto my napkin and spoon. As I cleaned it up I wondered to myself if there was any significance to Taylor's proclamation, and the subsequent fact that I was here now, mere months after the incident. I'm sure being merged with this specific Taylor Hebert in this specific Worm AU had nothing to do with a naive pledge made by an scared ninth grader… Right?

...Stupid ROB, making me wonder stupid stuff like that. So what if I might be here to fulfill some kind of cosmic promise that was launched into the void between universes by a righteous vow made by an innocent child to protect her loved ones. There's no way a being like the ROB who gave me my powers would respond to a request like that, right? My mind spun as Thinker powers engaged, tearing the problem into its constituent pieces and examining each of them under a metaphorical microscope all at the same time. I quickly locked that shit down, and proceeded to turn my mind off for now. It was time for food, not introspection.

Determined to completely ignore the matter for the rest of the night, I took a huge bite of Annette's excellent homemade cornbread after dunking it in my chili. There was good food to eat right now, so hypothetical bullshit could sit down and shut the fuck up. She had done so many different things with different bodies that it took mom over an hour to tell me about her day, even just giving me the highlights, but that was alright as it gave me time to finish my chili and have seconds... and then thirds. I did my best to be a good listener; I didn't really want to talk about my day and have to lie to her any more.

I grunted and nodded in the right places, letting Annette decompress as she spoke. I had a lot of practice at active listening, as I had done this for my wife, back befor-"DON'T THINK ABOUT THAT!" my mind screamed at me. Time slowed down as a very specific power, the First Power that I had ever made, actually, switched itself on. My brain experienced the equivalent of a hiccup and then rebooted, all without my face betraying a thing. Powers were awesome, but all in all they weren't worth the cost. Nothing was worth the price I had paid for them...

'Watch it buddy,' I mentally reminded myself, 'You don't want to go swimming in those waters twice in one night.' I turned First Power up a notch, causing the black mental sludge, which had been slowly seeping out from where it was locked away in my subconscious, to retreat deep into the hidden recesses of my mind. I would be OK, at least for one more day. Time resumed at a normal pace, and thanks to another burst of First Power I was able to resume my normal behavior, the incident almost entirely forgotten for now.

'What was I thinking about again?' I wondered. I dismissed the thought; it couldn't have been very important. Mom laughed when I leaned back with my pants button undone. I released a loud burp, patting my belly in contentment. I rolled my eyes when she compared me to Danny; "father's daughter" indeed! Two-thirds of me had never even met the guy. I suddenly had a revelation. Who cares if a Fourteenth Dimensional Inside-out Hell Zebra like ROB had some strange plan he wanted me to complete? What did it matter that I may have been summoned to this plane of existence by an Interplanar Abomination fulfilling a wish forged in the depths of a pure girl's heart? If dinners like these kept coming my way, whatever bullshit was coming down the pipe might not be _worth it_ , but it would definitely be easier to bear.


	3. Chapter 2A

**Being Taylor is** _ **a**_ _**Thing**_

 **Chapter 2A - Assault on Annette**

Annette was having a good week. She was at work at her favorite part-time job, this one as a helper at the local rescue shelter. The job didn't pay a huge amount, just over minimum wage, but every little bit helped when you were a single parent raising a teenage daughter all on your own. Helping animals made her feel nice, like she was doing something good for her community, for Brockton Bay. Currently she was cleaning the puppy display, a waist-high plexiglass hexagon in the center of the shelter's display area. As the tall woman moved the puppies out of the display and into mobile kennel lined with newspaper, she thought about her daughter, who was the light of her life. A smile graced her lips.

Taylor had gleefully informed her the night before that she'd aced the Chemistry midterm that she had been stressing over for weeks, which lightened things up around the house enormously. This morning her daughter had looked positively gleeful as she marched proudly off to school. The multi-bodied mother had felt pride and satisfaction at the young teenager's achievement. 'I _should_ be proud,' thought Annette smugly. Taylor had come home a few weeks ago so worried about the upcoming exam that she had spent all night awake, splitting off and reabsorbing clone after clone until the exhausted woman had a new body with a power that she could use to help Taylor study for the test.

Annette's efforts yielded a clone with a Thinker ability that was mostly based around computing angles and velocities. The new replicant's power had also included enhanced deductive reasoning and analysis skills, which she figured should be great for tutoring her daughter. The clone had been a resounding success, and surprisingly enough the geometry part of the power had been the more useful part, as it had given Annette an intrinsic understanding of several types of math, a core component in chemistry, and the part giving Taylor the most trouble in the subject.

Annette had planned to keep the clone around indefinitely... at least she had until she had swallowed a bug at nine hundred feet in the air, causing her to lose concentration and clip a billboard with her absolutely vital flying clone. She had shattered most of the bones in the body's arm and she suspected that it's spine was cracked as well. The Thinker body had been her least vital copy at the time, and had thus been absorbed to heal the clone which had the best flight power she had ever produced. It was a small comfort that the the Thinker powers had boosted the flyer's skill at maneuvering through the skies immensely. She would enjoy her increased ability in the air until the upgrade started to fade in a week or so.

The loss of the clone had been the low point of the week, but it wasn't _too_ bad. Annette usually had to absorb a few clones each week by necessity or design. On the upside, if she had used a clone's powers a fair amount beforehand, the body absorbing it would gain a large upgrade in ability relating to the former clone's power. The more she had used and mastered the absorbed power, the more of an increase she saw. She kept secret the fact that a small fraction of the power was permanently retained by the absorbing clone, even from her daughter. The implications were worrisome, and she saw no need to share it with others.

Really, the worst part of losing the Thinker body was Taylor's pout when she found out what happened to it. Annette had ruffled the teen's curly hair, so much like her own, and laughed. "You'll just have to get by studying with your mother without the benefit of Thinker powers, like everyone else." she had teased. Taylor had just roller her eyes before heading off to wherever it was she was going at the time.

The clone wielder smiled fondly while she swept the shredded newspaper on the floor of the puppy display into a trash bag. She was nearly done gathering up all of the used bedding when she heard the sound of a large vehicle air-braking, the sudden squeal and hiss startling her and causing her to lose her train of thought. Annette frowned; something wasn't right. The rescue shelter was in an out of the way location on a side street, somewhere a semi truck had no place being, and the nearest bus stop was half a mile away. A chill went down her spine as a primal part of herself cried a warning from her hindbrain. This would need to be investigate _now._

Annette hurried the body in the shelter forward so that she could get a clear view the large window facing the street. Her true self, the single consciousness currently inhabiting six bodies, reached out and synchronized them in preparation for immediate action if necessary. The single look she caught of the street told her all she needed to know. She gazed upon the blocky tinker-crafted APC that was parking itself at the curb in front of the shelter. The side of the van facing her present location was bristling with turreted gun barrels, each of which were beginning to take aim at the structure she and a handful of others inhabited.

Annette exploded into action, six times more brainpower and various parahuman powers enabling her to accomplish a great many tasks in a short period of time. Her teleporter, who was standing in line at the supermarket, suddenly disappeared, badly startling a middle-aged cashier. The teleporter reappeared at home, gathered a body with force field powers, then popped into being in a field behind the shelter, shielded from sight by a storage shed. The body currently in the shelter, her flyer, rose up into the air to hover above the heads of her two coworkers and a family of three who had hoped to adopt a cat. The single mother was grateful that the five were the only people here besides herself right now. More people would have been harder to protect.

"Listen up now!" Annette called, using what Danny had affectionately dubbed her ' _Momma is Serious!'_ voice. Between the urgency in her tone and her display of superhuman powers, she instantly received the full attention of everyone in the room. "There are villains out front who are about to attack, so we have to act fast. Go to the rear door right now. You three," she said, pointing to the family of three, a man, woman, and little girl of Middle Eastern descent, "Follow the rest of us. Everyone needs to stay calm and make haste, but _do not_ run, not unless I tell you to first. Don't bring anything with you that you aren't already carrying. I'm promise to do my best to protect you. Go!"

They moved, the five unpowered humans drawn and silent. Annette threw a glance behind her to see what was going on out the window. She had spent maybe twenty seconds total talking, but already armed gang members were hopping down from the rear of the giant armored vehicle, and they looked to be carrying weapons of some kind. While the flying clone was racing after the civilians fleeing the animal shelter, the teleporter was getting a better look at the gangsters, having popped onto the roof. Annette's teleporter appeared on top of the building, already crouching behind a large air conditioning unit. She winced when she noticed that the latest person jumping out of the ugly, cobbled-together rig was a dark-skinned man with filthy clothes and a mask covering the top half of his face.

Annette had never seen the cape before, but she thought this must be Skidmark, the leader of the Archers Bridge Merchants. Skidmark was purportedly some kind of kinetic energy manipulator; rumor and PHO said that he could create static energy fields which either increased or decreased the speed of objects traveling through them by a small amount. It didn't sound like that impressive of a power, but reports said that he could layer the fields over and over until they had a greater effect than a regular force field on one side, and the ability to launch things at insane speeds from the other. It was a deceptively useful ability, as his unpowered gang members could use the effect to add velocity to thrown objects or, more lethally, to turn normal handguns into weapons that could harm even capes with low brute ratings... or tear a normal person to shreds. Annette knew that it would be a bad idea to underestimate Skidmark; several capes had lost their lives doing just that. If she was going to make it out of this situation alive and uncaptured she would need to play for keeps.

The teleporting clone popped away a soon as it assessed the situation, on the way to gather the other three bodies Annette had active right now. The other two copies onsite had led the people fleeing from the gang's wrath out the back door and behind the shed where they were not visible from the street. Her flyer, who had slightly increased strength but nothing blatantly superhuman, was in the process of loading herself down with two of her charges. The mother of the family who had been looking for a cat was lifted into her arms and held in a bridal carry, while her forcefield clone helped the daughter climb onto her back, securing the little girl to the flyer's body by tying both of the clones' belts together and wrapping the improvised harness around both Annette and the little girl tightly. The flyer lifted into the air as fast as she was able, using the building to hide her ascent until she was far enough away to change direction without the Merchants noticing.

The flying clone dropped her two passengers off on the roof of a nearby high rise apartment complex, then quickly returned to the others at top speed. By the time she got back the other three civilians had already been evacuated by her teleporter, and a full compliment of bodies was present. They split into three groups, the forcefield shaker going with the teleporter while the new arrivals formed a group of three, and the flyer stayed on her own. Before they split apart the teleporter made one more ten-second trip home, returning with Danny's old .308 Winchester hunting rifle and a satchel of fully loaded 10-round magazines for it. She handed these to the flyer, who shot into the air so fast she was less than a blur. One of the flyers sub-powers prevented the sonic boom that would normally have occurred at those speeds.

At this point in time it had been slightly over two minutes since Annette had first spotted trouble. Her flyer could see that the Merchants had fully exited their vehicle, and were forming themselves into a firing line facing the building. The parahuman in the ugly blue half-mask flung his arms out over and over at the space between the tinkertech vehicle and the building, the group of shabbily-dressed criminals lining themselves up so that they could fire through the field. She saw a light blue haze begin to appear in front of them, steadily growing darker. He was definitely Skidmark, then. The flyer slapped a magazine into the rifle, "standing" in the air hundreds of feet over their heads and several yards upwind from them. She pulled back the bolt and took aim, Skidmark's head in her sights. She inhaled, steadying herself in the air with her flight powers, and then exhaled. Her finger hovered over the trigger, ready to move at a second's notice.

While her flying body rose into the air Annette's other avatars were not idle. The other two teams moved out, each of them with a plan of action. The team of three bodies, consisting of a metallokinetic, a pyrokinetic, and a brute sprinted around the side of the building, the brute leading the way until they had nearly rounded the large structure. They were still out of the Merchant's line of sight, but they had a clear view of the street. Looking around, Annette spotted several cars parked across the road. The metallokinetic drew heavily on her power, pulling a 1990's Honda Civic she spotted in a driveway down the street toward her as fast as she could, the car deforming and shifting as it rolled quickly toward her position.

The summoned vehicle deformed and shifted as it moved, glass shattering and hitting the ground as the windows exploded. Anything not made of metal was ejected as the car moved, broken and discarded. In the eight seconds it had taken the car to reach the small team of clones, it had shifted into an oversized parody of a riot-shield made out of twisted car remains, two large handholds on the interior of the slightly curving interior, the wheels barely touching the ground. The brute body grabbed the shield, staggering under its weight before she adjusted herself. The other two bodies took positions inside the area protected by the shield as they started forward toward their enemies.

At the same time the teleporter and the forcefield shaker a popped behind enemy lines, clear across the road from the criminals' firing line. The were crouched behind an ancient van with a faded, life-size unicorn painted on the side. They prepared to enact their part in the plan. Annette caused both of them to split, causing a brand-new body to emerge from each of the existing clones.

Seconds after the new clones finished forming Annette was aware of her two new powers, a trickle of knowledge flowing from _somewhere_ , feeding the hivemind that was her true self. One of the newbies was a "Breaker", the catch-all term for parahumans that had a non-biological alternate form, usually something to do with platonian elements or energy of one variety or other. The Breaker could assume a form made out of lightning which could quickly "swim" through solid matter and impart large amount of electricity to anything it touched. This new body also had the capacity to heal itself from damage by transforming, no matter which form it was in when injured. Annette was intrigued by this new power, and thought that she might retain the clone permanently if it performed well today.

The second of her new avatars had a rare "Stranger" power. Strangers were parahumans with powers that allowed them to disguise themselves, hide their presence, or fool people into thinking they were a different person. Annette's power seemed to be biased against certain types of abilities, though she didn't know why. Dedicated Thinker powers, for instance, were fairly uncommon and clones were only very rarely Masters or Strangers. Despite her root power being a Master/Trump type, none of Annette's clones had ever manifested a discrete Trump ability. This was only the third Stranger power that she had ever generated, making her excited to use it despite the simplicity of the power. This clone's power did nothing more or less than allow the new body, along with anything touching it, to selectively become invisible to anyone or anything she chose. She figured this power would come in handy in the upcoming battle.

Both new clones had been finished forming, their powers assessed and cataloged, in less than thirty seconds. As soon as Annette understood the Stranger's abilities she had activated them and moved that body closer to the enemy. She hid in plain sight, standing in the street only a few yards away from the Merchants. Ever prepared, the parahuman mother had made a thin fabric "utility belt" with several zipper pouches, which she wore under her clothes. It contained the essentials for an emergency, including a few weapons and tools, and it fit snugly around her waist just above her beltline. The cloning process copied anything on her person, giving each of the new duplicates a fully-stocked utility belt of their own. The Stranger pulled a pair of tactical punch knives from one of the belt's compartments. Holding a weapon in each hand, the stealthy duplicate waited to play her part in the battle to come. Back behind cover, the squatting teleporter armed herself from her own belt, selecting a knife of her own, as well as a tiny two-shot Derringer pistol. The Breaker copy transformed into a woman-shaped lightning bolt, and speedily flowed into the ground, disappearing under the pavement.

The forcefield shaker and the teleporter stayed out of sight, in reserve in case something went wrong. The shaker could operate on "line-of-sight", and so could quickly put a force field in place to protect any of her other bodies if needed. The teleporter was ready to rescue anyone she could, or to pop away if it looked like she was going to lose the battle. As long as at least one body got away then Annette would survive. She could always make more clones.

While Annette moved her selves into place and prepared for battle, the Merchants readied for their attack on the shelter. Skidmark directed his men by shouting choice obscenities at them while he paced back and forth, his mannerisms those of a rabid animal trapped in a cage. "Hurry the fuck up and get outta the truck yah lot uh' rotten cum dumpsters! Fuckin' hurry, the bitch we're here ta' grab'll see us any minute, and we didn't cart our asses down here ta' watch the dumb whore get away!"

The masked gangmaster stomped over to a particularly obese man wearing a heavily stained Boston Red Sox jersey along with jeans that had more holes in them than a wheel of swiss cheese. The corpulent gangster had one hand jammed down the front of his pants scratching furiously, a rusted .25 ACP handgun clutched in the other. Skidmark proceeded to punch him in the back of the head, making him cry out and stagger forward a step. "Fat Frank, git yer fuckin' hand off yer cock and onta' yer gun!" Skidmark screamed at him. Frank quickly complied, after quickly sniffing of the hand in question.

The foul-mouthed criminal leader moved on, moving to another man whose body was shaking so badly that he was nearly convulsing, gun gripped tightly in both hands to avoid dropping it. "Stevie, just fuckin' _stand_ there yah retard, quit fuckin' shaking! Shoot the cunt and you'll get yer fix after the fight... for free!" The cape smiled at his DT'ing subordinate, his shriveled teeth turned green and brown with decay. Stevie nodded an affirmative, his neck moving like it was made of rubber, head whipping jerkily back and forth.

His subordinates suitably cowed, Skidmark took position behind the line of men and began flinging his arms out rapidly, one then the other, opening his hand at the end of each extension as if he was releasing something from them. A glowing blue wall of force began forming between the Merchant's position and the animal shelter, darkening as the villainous Shaker layered kinetic fields on top of each other over and over again, making the resultant barrier become thicker and more powerful. The merchant grunts, many of them having worked with Skidmark's power several times before, made sure their mismatched arsenal of projectile weapons were loaded and ready to use. Then, one by one, the drug using gang members started to take aim at the building, waiting for their leader's order to fire. The gun turrets on the tinkertech vehicle began moving until each one of the dozen or so weapons was lined up with the shelter. Less than five minutes had elapsed, at most, since the gang had arrived.

Skidmark stopped strengthening his field, having hit the limit to which a single field could be enhanced. His chapped lips showing a cruel half-smile, and the rotten-toothed degenerate spoke gleefully. "The little clone cunt won't know what hit her! They'll be so many identical corpses that the goddamn morgue'll give her a fuckin' volume discount!" He choked out a hoarse laugh, voice raspy from smoking too many cigarettes and other, more questionable substances over too many years.

Several things happened in a very small period of time. The loud 'crack' of a firearm discharging rang out, and Skidmark's still laughing face exploded in a shower of gore that caused several of his men to stumble back as if they had been shot as well. The Merchant Shaker's skull had been perforated from the rear, the bullet exiting through his face. His body toppled to the ground as a loud shriek, followed by a bellow of rage, escaped from the interior of the Tinkertech armored vehicle. With no noise or visual of any kind, the kinetic field Skidmark had spent just over two minutes creating simply ceased to be. The rear doors of the enormous truck slammed open, and a giant, seemingly made of garbage, leapt out. The newcomer's head whipped back and forth, in search of the person who had killed his leader.

With Skidmark dead, the lynchpin holding the regular gangbangers together as a unit was gone. The unpowered mooks became a mob composed of untrained, strung-out drug addicts with guns, many of them only interested in their own self-preservation. Most of the gangsters started firing wildly toward the animal shelter, but without the insane velocity provided by Skidmark's field only a few bullets were able to hit the thick brick walls, and none to penetrate. Two of the newer gangsters dropped their weapons and attempted to flee, their faces contorted in terror at the death of their leader. Mush, the trash armored parahuman, was not having any of that. Snarling in rage at their cowardice, he swept one enormous, disgusting arm out at them. He clotheslined two of his men hard enough to send both of them to the ground with the wind knocked out of them. The wounded gangbangers stayed down.

Annette's group of three bodies charged out, the Brute clone carrying the giant car shield in front of them. The Merchants with guns switched targets to the shield, it's opacity preventing them from identifying what was behind it. At nearly the same second two of the Merchant shooters fell to the ground without apparent cause. When their fellows looked at them in curiosity, they saw a torrent of blood gushing from their necks as the filthy man and woman who had been stealthily assaulted began to bleed out. The giant shield continued to come closer and closer, before it was nearly halted as the large guns on the Tinker-truck began firing at it. Squealer seemed to have recovered enough from witnessing her leader and boyfriend's death to defend herself and her compatriots. Many of the bullets seemed to slow by a large amount as them impacted the shield. Not all of the flying projectiles were affected, however, and their velocity was not fully canceled.

Annette's Brute incarnation redoubled her efforts, leaning into the gunfire and digging her feet into the ground before running forward with all the strength she could muster. While this was going on another loud rifle shot sounded, dropping the most effective of the Merchant's shooters with another headshot. Parts and pieces of the shield were shorn from its main body as it started to wear down from the incredible volume of fire. Emboldened, several of the Merchants screamed curses at the approaching enemy. When the shielded capes were perhaps ten or fifteen yards from the firing line the large piece of metal suddenly stopped. The Brute clone jammed the pointed bottom of the repurposed car into the ground as hard as possible, causing it to become anchored in place.

The metallokinetic clone, now close enough to use her power on the the truck, began to work. She tried to lift or throw the massive vehicle, but it was simply too enormous for her. Instead, she "grabbed" a small part of the behemoth with her power and then began rocking the enormous thing, causing it to teeter back and forth. It rocked from side to side over and over, a little more every time. This process was slowed a bit due to the shield needing to be held together with her power and the incoming bullets slowed. The projectiles that hit the large chunk of twisted metal were absorbed by the shield to increase the protection it offered. The Brute was still bracing herself against the shield with her feet sunk to the ankles into the hard soil of the lawn, holding it in place and preventing it from falling backward under the relentless assault.

The pyrokinetic body smiled; it was her turn now. Using the eyes of the Stranger and the Flyer to see, she pushed a single finger out from behind the large slab of metal protecting her from death and launched a whirlwind of white-hot flame at the Mush's filthy countenance. To her delight, Annette witnessed his outer layer of refuse instantly combust, releasing a plume of oily black smoke. She wasn't sure, but Annette thought that it looked toxic. Mush charged the enemy position rapidly, his steps jerky and unsure as he continued to burn. The flaming whirlwind had hit one of the other Merchants in the same blast that set Mush ablaze; he was on the ground with terrible looking burns, shrieking wildly and rolling, trying to put himself out.

As he ran, Mush was peppered by several rounds of friendly fire, from both Squealer's gun turrets and his compatriots pistols. It didn't seem to bother him nearly as much as the fire that was still burning in places on his armor. Annette had her pyrokinetic body hit him with another blast, this one the strongest that her power could muster. Her target was much closer, now, as he had helpfully arranged with his advance, and that made all the difference. The new horizontal tornado of fiery death slammed into the Merchant Brute with considerable force, knocking him off his feet and sending him crashing into the ground onto his back. The area where he landed was cleared of vegetation instantly, the ground made dark and crispy by the burst of near-plasma that washed over it. The flaming assault kept up for several seconds. When the burning wind lifted, Mush's corpse was little more than a man shaped briquette.

The engine of the Tinkertech truck started rumbling loudly as Squealer started spooling the armed transport up. The flyer could barely see through the heavily-tinted windshield, but the human shape she could see there was moving frantically. The rear doors of the tinker truck slammed closed by themselves, locking with a metallic 'thunk'. A few of the Merchant troops looked at the vehicle wild-eyed at seeing their ride about to depart without them. Gears ground as the van was put into gear, and the engine revved, but the escape attempt had come too late. The beastly machine was rocking violently now, nearly unbalancing each time it leaned toward each side. The top of the vehicle was dipping down lower and lower… dangerously low. Squealer attempted to flee, slamming her foot down on the gas pedal, the wheels on the side in the air spinning uselessly as it lurched forward a few feet on two wheels. Punching the gas was the final straw that broke the camel's back, and the multi-ton internal combustion powered APC fell, crashing down with enough force to stagger everyone nearby.

The windshield blew out, exposing Squealer's panicking form in the drivers seat. She was hastily pulling at something attached to the roof of the cab, head bloodied and eyes wide. With a soft 'click' she detached a military-style semi-automatic shotgun, a large drum of ammo slung on the underside of the weapon. She kicked upward at the driver's side door, and it flew open, exposing the chaos of the street to her. She pulled herself up and out, and was leveling the gun on the Brute, who was wading through thugs, knocking them senseless, when she was was set upon by Annette's electric body. Her form crackling with energy, the breaker leapt up from the under the pavement and onto Squealer, sending joule upon joule of lightning into the Tinker's body. When she pulled back, the drugged-out villain lay still upon the ground, her skin blistered where the other cape had grabbed her. Annette deactivated her breaker form and squatted down, feeling for a heartbeat and signs of breathing; she would find neither.

By now the battles was over, Annette noted, with every one of the Merchants who had come to kidnap or kill the clone-using cape either unconscious or dead. She had the bizarre experiencing of feeling shock from several different viewpoints, as the adrenaline she had been high on left her bodies. She did a quick check of her bodies for injuries, finding that only the Brute had suffered any. That particular body had been shot twice as she engaged the gun-weilding gangbangers in melee combat. The small-caliber bullets had barely penetrated her skin, causing only superficial damage. Annette gathered the majority of her bodies together, only the flyer and stranger abstaining, and gave herself a quick hug for reassurance. Somehow, incredibly, she had survived with no real wounds or damage.

The entire fight, from when the Merchants had first arrived until this point, had taken perhaps ten minutes at most; Annette had never before realized just how _fast_ things moved in a battle. Her multitude of selves spread out and began checking the downed Merchants for survivors so that she could provide them with first aid. The two Mush had downed her fine, and only pretending to be knocked out to avoid fighting. Her flyer had noticed them slowly creeping away in the aftermath, and she was quick to bind the ankles and wrists of the terrified men with zip-ties from a belt pouch. The man who had been standing next to Mush when he had been hit by the pyrokinetic was alive, though his breathing was shallow and a large portion of his skin was badly burned. Two of them men her Brute body had struck were also alive, with head injuries from being struck there by first powerful unyielding fists, and then by the ground when they hit the ground.

Annette was using her small first aid kit and three of her bodies to treat the survivors' injuries when members of the PRT and Protectorate arrived. By now she only had four bodies onsite, the rest had been teleported back to their previous locations. One of her rules was to avoid placing all of her bodies in one location if at all possible, as she could recover from anything as long as at least one clone survived. It was a mark of just how fearful of the situation she had been to have brought all of her bodies here earlier. The PRT trucks stopped at a distance, disgorging their troopers, who quickly took cover. Weapons were aimed at her, and Annette continued what she was doing, but she made preparations to being a fighting retreat if they attacked her without cause. Another vehicle pulled up beside the PRT trucks, and the familiar figure of Miss Militia hopped out of the camouflage pattern jeep she had been driving. With a few hand-signals to the leader of the PRT squad, the patriotic hero began slowly approaching her location.

...

Miss Militia had recognized the clone using cape and assessed the situation at a glance. She could see at least five dead bodies from here, at least one of them a cape, and so despite her easy stroll the weapon on her hip shifted into a large anti-material rifle and moved itself into her waiting hands. She had recognized the multiple bodied woman who was seemingly performing first aid on some of the fallen gangsters as Annette Hebert, one of the few parahumans who didn't let her powers dictate her life. The single mother wasn't a hero or a villain, and not even truly a rogue for that matter.

Hannah had met the woman twice before, though both meetings were brief and had only covered business. The first time she had spoke with Annette was during the initial meeting where the Mouse Protector, the Protectorate leader, and Thomas Calvert, the Director of the PRT East-North-East, had tried to recruit her. She frowned; that meeting had not gone well _at all_. The second time she had spoken to the woman had been in the aftermath of a building fire several weeks ago. Annette, not even owning a costume or mask, had unfortunately outed herself in the course of rescuing trapped and terrified tenants from the burning apartment complex. It made the protectorate cape _furious_ that some of the very people whose lives Mrs. Hebert had saved recorded her on their camera phones and posted the videos to the Internet that same night.

The protectorate heroine was willing to give the Annette the benefit of the doubt for now in light of their past interactions; unless she saw otherwise she would hold off on foaming or otherwise attempting to apprehend her. The scene was grisly, but it had been Annette herself who had called the altercation in, and the dead and unconscious bodies on the ground belonged to the Archers Bridge Merchants, easily the most reviled gang in the city. In a town with real, live _Nazis_ that was saying something. As the military-themed cape approached, she hailed the other woman, her hand raised in a greeting, the other on her ever-present weapon.

"Annette." she said as she neared the closest of the woman's four bodies. "What happened here?" she asked. Miss Militia surveyed the scene now that she was much closer, looking intently at the prone gangsters. She startled badly when she realized two of the dead were Squealer and Skidmark... She focused, taking in the rest of the scene. Due to the small piles of burnt garbage scattered about and the human-shaped piece of carbon a few yards away, she would also bet that Mush had met a similar end.

In a single engagement all three of the Merchant capes had been killed. Hannah shivered, wondering how much of a chance the local Protectorate would stand of suffering the same fate if they had to go up against Annette. Nine different powers was a hell of a lot of firepower and versatility… And the clone wielder could change them on a whim, too, so you would never know what abilities she would have at any given time. Even if the individual powers were weaker, not even Eidolon could boast that.

"They were here to kill or capture me… I'm not sure which," spoke Annette, rising from the burnt body she was working on. Her other copies continued to bandage their patients. The curly haired woman spoke slowly and clearly, explaining everything that had happened. Miss Militia listened intently, asking an occasional question here and there. Halfway through the clones had finished tending to the survivors to the best of their ability. All three of Annette's clones were tjem transported away one by one by another body which could apparently teleport _and_ carry passengers, an extremely rare ability. Hannah had interrupted the other parahuman partway through, waving the PRT medics forward to see to the gangsters who were still alive. The PRT captain joined her, listening to Annette's story of the encounter.

"And then they were all down, and it was just me." Annette finished, her head bowed. "The _fuckers_ ," she cursed, "How could they do this to other people? Firing gun turrets in the city? Who knows what they could have hit, who they could have killed. They didn't give a damn if there was anyone inside the shelter or not, if they killed me or not. I _had_ to stop them, I couldn't let them kill me or anyone else." She was crying by now, but she still met the eyes of Hannah and Jake Poletti, the PRT captain.

She's just a civilian, Hannah realized. Annette wasn't another hero or villain out looking for trouble, for a fight. This woman was a college professor and a single mother, and had probably never been in a fight for her life before today. She may have one of the most dangerous powers that she had ever heard of, but Hannah thought she would probably have never used it in anger if the idiot Merchants hadn't come after her like this. And now she was having a minor breakdown at realizing how many lives she had been forced to end to defend herself and the other people present when the attack started. The protectorate cape reached out and took the dark haired woman's hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"It's going to be OK, Annette." said Hannah, squeezing her hand. "You're not the first parahuman to be targeted for death or recruitment by the Merchants. You just turned the table on them, did to them what they have had no problem doing to others in the past." Hannah gestured to one of the PRT vehicles, "Captain Poletti and I are going to need to bring you in for questioning down at the PRT building, but I don't think we're going to end up charging you with anything." Annette nodded; ever since her wild college days she had kept her nose clean; she didn't think she had anything to fear from speaking with the PRT. And it wasn't like they could actually hold her if she decided to leave; in the worst case scenario she would lose a single body.

…

In the end Annette had not been charged with a crime. Director Calvert had seemed very sincere in his apologies that the PRT had not arrived soon enough to help her fight off the Merchants. There was something about the man that was a little _off_ , but she couldn't put her finger on it. Annette decided that it didn't really matter much, and besides, he had never treated her with anything other than respect and cordiality.

After hearing reports from Miss Militia and the PRT officers on site, both the Director and Mouse Protector had agreed that it was a clear-cut case of self defense, and they had not even given her a warning for her actions. She felt simultaneously relieved and guilty, like she had gotten away with something she wasn't meant to. These feeling persisted despite Annette knowing that she had only done what she needed to in order to survive and protect those relying on her. She took some comfort in the knowledge that without their capes the Merchants had been effectively removed as a threat to Brockton Bay.

Annette walked out of the PRT building and strolled into a nearby alley. The clone she had left behind to speak with the PRT had been the new electrical breaker, who she figured had almost as good a chance of getting away as her teleporter if she needed to run, not to mention her much greater offensive power. She had been unwilling to risk the teleporter; capes who could teleport were rare, and those which could teleport while carrying even one other person even more scarce. The teleporter was easily her most useful body. Unless she manifested a new avatar with a more powerful or useful teleportation power she never planned to take it into direct combat or expose that body to unnecessary danger. It was her only method for rapidly deploying other bodies, and today demonstrated that this was absolutely vital when it came to large-scale combat. She had no illusions about how the fight would have gone without that particular power on hand.

The mover she had been thinking about materialized in the alley, linking hands with her breaker body. Annette dreaded the conversation with Taylor that would arise from today events, even more than she dreaded the nightmares that she knew would invade her sleep from now on. She shuddered, thinking of the look on Squealer's face when she had electrocuted her. The smell had been positively evil, and she had no doubts that it was burned into her mind for eternity. Frowns marring their faces, the two identical copies of the same woman faded out of existence. The alley was suddenly empty once more.


	4. Chapter 3

**Being Taylor is** _ **a**_ _**Thing**_

 **Chapter 3 - Being Taylor is** _ **Friendship**_

A few days later found me at my best friend's Emma's house. The two of us were playing video games with the third member of our little group, my _other_ best friend, Sophie Adams. She was the girl who would have been, in another world, the dreaded _Sophia Hess_. Yeah, yeah, I know; it's strange as shit, right? It creeped me out immensely right at first, but the part of me that was Taylor had never seen the two girls as anything other than her closest confidants… definitely not the orchestrators of unspeakable torments perpetrated upon her person. Theses were nice girls. Well, as nice as teenage girls at the top of the food chain _could_ be, really. Alright, they were a little bitchy once in awhile… but then again, who wasn't? Especially when they were having their periods… seriously, I am so glad to be done with that bullshit. Curing myself of the horror that was menstruation: one PM charge. Never having to go have a period or go through PMS again? Priceless. _For everything else, there's American Express._

In one universe Emma and Sophia bullied Taylor mercilessly, and yet in this one the teenage has somehow become her BFFs. And I had _absolutely no idea_ why Sophia Hess was called Sophie Adams in this reality. She was the same girl as in Worm canon, I was at least 99% sure. The dusky skinned teenager was a track star, and looked exactly as Hess was described by Wildbow. My best guess was that her mother had married someone different from her 'canon' second husband, who if I remembered correctly was the cause of Sophia's trigger and at least some of her mental problems. If I recalled, the guy she married was a soft-spoken black man with depression issue; that's definitely not the guy she had introduced me to as her father when I met her parents for the first time.

Mr. Adams ("Call me Doug!") was a tall, slightly overweight white guy with a perpetual friendly grin and worn-in laugh lines. He had a large, unkempt brown beard and he loved to tell lame jokes, which he somehow made funny due to the way he delivered them. He always called his adopted daughter "Sophie", so I suppose that could have explained the origin of the nickname as well. Sophie, like nearly all teenagers, tried not to show it, but it was clear as day that she adored him. The particulars of why my caramel colored cohort had become my friend instead of my bully didn't especially matter; I was just glad to be in a universe that didn't seem intent on shitting all over my pursuit of happiness.

 **.** **.** **.**

We were taking turns playing _Super Smash Brothers Melee_ on Emma's old Gamecube, something the two of us had made a habit of occasionally doing since we were little kids. When Sophie had joined our group a little over a year ago she had happily joined in on our tradition. We weren't really "gamer girls", as we only played a few games, and even then only casually. Video games were fun, but they were relegated to the role of a distraction, something to accompany conversation while the paint on our toenails dried. My bare toes, their nails a glossy seafoam green, were a testament to that fact.

Sophie was taking a break from gaming, as she had just painted her fingernails. They were now a startlingly bright shade of magenta. It really wasn't the right color for her complexion, but if you didn't try them all out, how would you ever know for sure? Personally, I thought that she looked best in fall colors; Sophie was _such_ an Autumn- My train of thought plowed into a cow that had been lying on the tracks, messily derailing and scattering its carcass over a square mile of mental farmland. I fought the urge to punch myself in the throat, or purple my own nurple at how positively _girly_ my inner monologue had been. The Taylor in me saw nothing wrong with it, which for some reason made me feel even worse. I felt like a gay man's sense of aesthetics, trapped in a straight man's mind, locked in a teenage girl's body. It was a very weird three seconds or so, before I got ahold of myself. Thankfully, I did not have to resort to using _that_ power.

'You're a girl now, it's OK to have painted nails. It _alright_ to like pretty things,' I told myself. But somehow it _wasn't_ OK. I wondered if it, _if I_ , would ever would be alright again. I didn't know. To distract myself from dangerous levels of internal teenaged hormone powered angst, I thought about the upcoming conversation I was planning to have with my besties. I was going to come out to them. _As a parahuman._ Not as a "gay girl". Well, maybe it would be good to rip off the bandage and do both at once? This new line of thought made me just nervous enough to cancel out the unwelcome gendercentric ennui that had been coursing through my being.

"Wow Taylor, you totally suck at Smash Bros today. And what's with that fucked-up face? Looks like you just just bit down on a lemon." Emma nattered at me, shooting me a glance from the corner of her eye as she worked her controller, pummeling my avatar with Kirby. On my side Samus Aran was starting to look a little bit fucked up. I resolved to turn this curbstomp around, and began mashing the buttons on my own gamepad madly while biting down on my tongue, the pink tip protruding slightly from my lips. It was no use; despite my best efforts the hero of Metroid was flung off into the distance, ending the round. I scowled, staring down at the gamepad that had betrayed me. My redheaded friend had beaten me like Ike beat Tina. Sophie chuckled at my antics, and Emma tried to hide a smug little smirk. She owned the console, alright? I didn't even have a video game system at home.

Sophie, sitting on the bed behind us, waved a hand lazily to help her nails dry. She looked at me piercingly. "Something's obviously wrong here, Taylor. You've hardly been hanging out with us the last few weeks, and we know _something_ happened to you a few months back; you've been like a different person since then. Emma and I were hoping that you would tell us what was wrong on your own, but if you're not going to bring it up yourself then I'm fine asking you flat-out." She paused, making sure to catch my eyes with her own, locking on. I tensed up, and couldn't look away. Her face was a mixture of curious and concerned. "What's the matter?"

"Sophie!" scolded Emma, her wide, doe-like eyes narrowed. If I hadn't been so nervous that I was nearly nauseous then I would have 'squee'd', she was so adorable. "You promised me that you wouldn't bring it up. She obviously doesn't want to talk about it." Emma looked more worried than angry, and though she addresses Sophie her eyes kept wandering my way. Despite her words to the contrary, years of experience told me that she was even more curious that the nimble track star.

I gulped, looking back and forth between Taylor's… no, _my_ best friends. I knew that Sophie wouldn't be swayed with mere platitudes, and Emma was nibbling on her lower lip, a sure sign that she was bound and determined to get to the bottom of things. My stomach churning, I hung my head, sighing once in resignation. I had been about to broach this topic myself, anyway. Probably. I raised my head, and stood up, looking at them both, my eyes harder than they were previously.

"If I tell you what's going on, then you both have to promise, _from the bottom of your hearts_ , to never to tell a soul about what I'm going to let you in on." Both girls kept their eyes on me. Sophie just nodded, and Emma stammered out a weak mutter of assent. I dropped a bomb on their tiny teenaged brains. "I'm a cape." Emma's mouth dropped open in shock, and Sophie blinked. "A few months ago I triggered. I have powers now."

"Oh. My. God!" shrieked Emma, apparently shocked to her core. It was luck that her parents and older sister were out of the house; my ears were ringing. I could tell that she didn't expect that at all. "How did it happen? What's your power!? Can you make clones like your mom?" The busty redheaded teen was yammering a mile a minute, her voice high and excited.

Sophie looked startled as well; I don't know what she was expecting me to say, but the revelation that I was now a parahuman wasn't it at all. I soon got my answer to that particular question. "I just thought that you were gay..." the dark skinned athlete mumbled, her face slack with surprise.

I blushed at her words, embarrassed; my face was once again aimed at the floor. Had it really been _that_ obvious? "Um... Actually, I am. Gay, that is. But the reason I've been different for the past few months is mainly because I'm a parahuman now." I quickly explained.

Emma's eyes went even wider, if that were possible. "What!? Sophie was right about that?" the young model exclaimed in surprise. She had a puzzled look on her face. I hope that this wouldn't ruin our friendship. I didn't _think_ so… Emma's older sister was gay, after all, and her family didn't seem to have any kind of problem with it. One of the few positive differences between Earth Bet and my homeworld was that homosexuality was more openly accepted here, due to one of the Triumvirate, Legend, coming out in the 90's.

Sophie's expression morphed from shock to a self-satisfied smirk, and she shot Emma a cocky look. "You owe me twenty bucks." she said, her voice thick with concentrated _smug_. The long legged gave fixed her redheaded friend a triumphant smile, holding out her hand expectantly.

Emma's face reddened, and she crossed her arms, scowling. "I _so_ do not! You heard her, Taylor's been acting wiggy because she _triggered_ , not because she's _gay_. Even if you were right about her being in the closet, I totally won our bet. You're the one who owes _me_ money, Soph."

Sophie looked rebellious. With one hand raised, finger pointed, she started to argue back, before rapidly deflating. She closed her mouth, and with an effort of will pulled her hand down and rested it at her side. "Wait one fuckin' minute. Our best friend just told us that she's a parahuman, and we're arguing over twenty goddamn dollars?" she looked incredulous. He face became blank, her eyes assessing as she looked at me again. "I hear that trigger events are some serious shit." said Sophie, looking at me pointedly. "How are you _really_ doing, Tay?"

Emma regained some semblance of clarity at these words, and paused. "Geez. You're right, Sophie." My oldest friend (in this world) looked at me again, her face filled with compassion, and a more than a hint of concern. "Taylor," she asked, "What happened? Is everything OK? I heard on PHO that Armsmaster triggered when his mom killed his dad right in front of him, or something." She and Sophia both were looking at me curiously now, waiting for some kind of answer. I swallowed, and Emma stepped closed the distance between us, pulling me against her strongly, embracing me.

It's a good thing I had tweaked my "Brute" powers to make me feel just like a regular human to other people, or she might have injured herself. I felt two large mounds press against me as she hugged me tightly, just below my own protuberances. "Soft... " I mumbled, my cheeks glowing red. Thankfully, worried as they were, neither of my friends noticed my little faux paw. Sophie was already moving to join us, and soon we had a nice group hug going. I was crying a little as we separated, but I felt a quite a bit better. I still had friends. We all crowded onto Emma's bed, under the covers to continue our conversation. It was a lot easier to talk with my friends close at hand like this. I could almost taste their love and acceptance.

I thought for a moment, trying to figure out a way of explaining my powers to them that would contain the essence of truth without giving away my biggest secrets. I needed them to know what I could do, if I wanted to empower and team up with my two besties. "I'm a second generation cape, so triggering is a little different from first gen parahumans. Trigger events are easier for us, they don't take nearly as much trauma."

Emma, cuddled up on my right, looked at me with wide eyes. "I didn't know that. So, like, did you just have a really shitty period, or something?" On my left, Sophie giggled.

I chuckled as well. "No. I had a really, really bad dream one night, not too long after mom's run-in with the Merchants." I paused. "The next morning, when I woke up, I had powers." It was technically true; I did have a bad dream, and I woke up with powers… and in this fucked up female body to boot. I didn't tell them that part, though. Taylor's pals would probably have murdered me for "body snatching" their BFF.

I continued my story. "I realized something was weird when I went downstairs. I could tell all of mom's clones apart, which is normally impossible, and I just instinctively knew what their powers were, and how they worked. It wasn't until later that day that I found out that I had copied all of their powers, and could use them whenever I wanted. Including mom's clone power..." I trailed off.

The two popular teens shared a shocked look, and a second later Sophie deferred to Emma when they both made a move to speak at the same time. My redheaded friend smiled at me weakly before asking her question, her eyes alight with excitement, and not a little awe. "Holy shit, Tails," whispered Emma. That was her childhood nickname for me. "Holy shit." she repeated.

Sophia looked at me incredulously. "Taylor, what are your powers, exactly?" she asked gently.

I must have looked like a caged animal as I considered how to continue. I needed to tell them a lot about my abilities, to make them understand just what I could do. We already had something awesome here; we trusted each other, liked each other. Innumerable school projects and homework assignments proved that we could work together amazingly. At least in my case, the Taylor in me caused me to _love_ both of the girls, just as much as I loved the brother I had left behind in the last world. Between Emma's people skills, Sophie's tenacity and discipline, and my general awesomeness, I was sure that we would make an absolutely _amazing_ team. I took the plunge.

"I'm a "Trump" type cape. I can do basically anything with powers themselves. I can copy them, make other capes' abilities stop working… I can even _give out_ powers, and make brand new ones. I can enhance other capes, and turn normal people into parahumans." Neither of them moved, neither spoke. In for a penny, in for a pound; I kept talking. "I've found a few soft limits, but nothing that I can't get past if I work a little and look for loopholes. I guess that you could say that my power is like Eidolon's... but better."

 **.** **.** **.**

Sophie was staring at me, her mouth a hard line. Her hands were gripping the edges of the blanket that covered us, her fists tightly clenched. Emma had tucked herself under my long arm, her eyes closed as silent tears streamed down her cheeks. Using more strength than a girl of my age and build could possibly possess, I pulled Sophie closer and into my side, like Emma was. Her face thawed a tiny bit, but she still wasn't giving me anything.

"I know that things are going to be different," I began, trying to lead into explaining my plan. Emma suddenly _wailed_ like she had when she skinned her knee at the playground when she was five, and tried to pull away, to escape. I had no clue what was going on in her mind, but I help her close until her panic fled, and she stopped fighting me. Sophie opened her mouth to say something, but Emma beat her to it.

"Why!?" she sobbed, "Why are you even here, telling us about how amazing you are? The way you've been gone, you've been out having cape adventures, haven't you?"

"Emma-" I started, trying to explain.

"No!" she cried, cutting me off. "If you haven't joined some team already, then you're going to soon, aren't you? You're going to go away! Did you come back here out of pity, to hang out with us regulars and let us make idiots of ourselves, worrying about where you've been and how you've been acting for the past two months?" She poked me in the chest, wincing when she jammed her finger. "Or was it just to tell me an' Soph goodbye?" Tears had ruined her makeup; dark streaks of mascara trailed all the way down, from Emma's red cheeks to her quivering jaw. Her eyes were filled with hurt, and the need to share some of it with me.

"God dammit, Emma!" I cried, my own tears coming out now. "You seriously think that I would _ever_ leave you? Quit being your friend? I _love_ you! I've been trying my fucking best to figure out a way to tell you what happened without losing you... I needed to get strong enough that I could protect you when I _did_ tell you. Because I know, that no matter what, you will want to be standing right there beside me when I finally become a hero." Emma's red, runny face looked up at me, her puffy eyes comically wide. Her full-lipped mouth had formed into an "O" of astonishment.

My nose was running, my face wet, and my own makeup was becoming a mushy mess. I wasn't going to lose my friend. I couldn't! I just needed to make her _understand_. I felt a PM charge disappear, and I suddenly knew what to say. "I kind of lied, triggering really fucked me up. I finally dealt with enough of my own shitty emotional baggage to tell you and Sophie the truth. That's why I came over here today. I'm finally strong enough to let you in. I have enough powers copied that I can make sure that you two don't die when we go out." I looked at Emma imploringly, and she gave me a water smile. Joy suffusing my being, I smiled back. "My plan this whole time… To give you and Sophie powers, so that we can be a superhero team together!"

I was breathing hard and still kind of sobbing a little at the end of my rant, and my two besties were both openly crying along with me. 'Men don't do this,' I thought. I tore that thought into little pieces and threw it away. I was happy, goddammit, and I had friends! I wiped my eyes off with the back of my hand, then gave my two besties a small, sincere smile. That was when both Emma and Sophie decided to spontaneously tackle-hug me, resulting in an undignified burial under a heap of crying, emotionally wrecked teenaged girl. Laughing, I did my best to hug them in my current, immobile position. Things just might be looking up.

 **.** **.** **.**

After we each took a trip to the bathroom to freshen up, we moved our discussion to the treehouse in Emma's large back yard. I had called Annette, asking to stay the night with Emma. She had readily agreed, much to my relief. Both Emma's father and Taylor's had worked together to build the treehouse when their daughters were much younger. Emma and I had begged them for a playhouse for weeks, before they finally broke down and started building one for their precious children. After the third time one of them had fallen off of Alan's rickety ladder, and over a week of work, Danny had called in a half dozen burly dockworkers with construction experience to finish the half-built project.

The tree house was finished later that same day, much to my and Emma's girlish delight. Since then, we had spent more hours than I could count up here, doing everything from playing capes to having sleepovers. With a flush, I remembered the "practice kissing" the redhead and I had experimented with in our last year of middle school. I quickly dismissed that thought. We had also stored our greatest treasures up here. As I climbed up through the trap door I spied a small, uneven bookcase that had been hand-made by Danny, Taylor's father. One of its rickety shelves held Emma's Alexandria action figure, alongside which stood my mother's flute, and my, err, Taylor's dad's pocket watch.

The three of us gathered together in the sitting area, a section of the floor covered by pillows and cushions that we had gathered over time. After our little group's misunderstanding and subsequent breakdown we had hardly spoken a word to one another, wary of breaking the strange spell that we all seemed to be under. Sophia sat with a single cushion directly under her rear, with her legs stretched out wide. She was doing some light stretches as she sat, and looking back and forth between Emma and I. Emma still appeared to be half in shock, and she kept shooting hopeful glances my way. I guess it was up to me to jump start this little rodeo.

I glanced at both of them, switching my gaze between two sets of eager eyes. "So, just for the record, you two both want in on my plan, right? Get some superpowers, help me save the world?"

Sophie glared at me, almost offended. "What do you think, Tay? Of course I do!"

Emma smiled sweetly, her voice filled with a mocking tone. "Oh geeze, I don't know… Should I accept the free, non traumatizing powers being handed out by the person who I trust the most in the whole world? That a _tough_ one!"

I chuckled. "Ok, I just needed to make sure we're all on the same page. I know that today's been rough, but you guys were being really quiet. I'm _really_ not used to that, especially from you, Emma."

She shot me a mock-angry look, her lips pursed comically. "Are you calling me _loud_ , Hebert?" she asked.

I laughed, real mirth filling me. Emma was definitely snapped out of her shock and acting like herself again. Here is the girl that had been thrashing me in Smash Bros. twice a week since forever. "Maybe just a little bit. Well, let's get you two set up with some basic powers first, then we'll design a theme for the both of you. I'm going to give you all of the basics to start with; flight, teleportation, invisibility, intangibility, toughness, super-strength, personal skin-tight forcefield, regeneration, and long-range laser blasts."

Sophia's jaw dropped open in shock. "Bullshit! That's just the _basics_?" she exclaimed loudly. I had no fear of anyone coming to see why were were shouting; I had already placed a perception bubble on the treehouse to prevent anyone from discovering our clandestine activities.

I looked smug. "Yep, those are just the basics." I concentrated for a moment, and each of my friends jumped a bit as they felt copies of the above mentioned powers integrating themselves into their bodies. "There, done. You're both Brute eights, Mover eights, Breaker sixes, Stranger fours, and Blaster fives. Each of you give me your wish-lists, and I'll see what I can do about custom powers. I have a whole bunch of copied powers that I can mix and match, and I can always whip up new ones if needed."

Emma was grinning like a lunatic as she hovered a few inches above the floor, still sitting cross legged like she had been previous to her empowerment. Sophie was staring at her right hand intently, studying the trickles of energy that she was emitting using the blaster power I had given her. Just for fun, I had made Sophie's energy powers look like beams of swirling, luminescent shadow. Emma's energy effects would be a deep red, like her hair. I allowed myself to float up into the air as well, as did Sophie when she realized what the two of us were doing.

"Omigawd, I want to go flying so _bad_!" said Emma boisterously. She was hovering all about in the treehouse now, reveling in her ability to defy gravity. Sophie was hanging upside down in the air now, her hands far apart and palms facing each other as she shot bursts of tiny lasers back and forth between them.

"Let's talk about the rest of your powers first. We can't go out until we figure out a way to make sure that we can differentiate ourselves from each other. If two or three people with nearly identical powers show up, who clearly aren't related, then people might get suspicious." I explained, willing the excitable teens to calm down for now, until we were finished with the task at hand.

"Emma, you think about what signature powers you would like to have. Sophie, you can go first. Do you have any ideas on what you would like for your signature powers?" I questioned my dusky skinned BFF. Predictably, she was still playing with her laser power. Somewhere along the line she had shot a hole in the floor of the treehouse, and Sophie kept looking between the smoking hole she had made and the speck of iridescent shadow on her fingertip in surprise, a dumb look plastered across her shocked face.

"Umm…" said the black teen slowly, dragging her attention away from her coherent light firing phalanges. "I'm really, really digging this laser power. It looks really cool, too, the glowing smoky shadow effect is awesome. Maybe I could get some more energy powers that look like that? Unless Emma's powers look the same as mine."

"Hmmm… Let me think for a moment, and I'll see what I can do." I said, winking at her. Sophie smiled. Energy powers could be very interesting. I examined my list of powers; there were several types in my inventory of abilities, and beside that I had a full day's worth of Power Manipulation charges just sitting around, specifically set aside for empowering my friends. I used PM to slap together a copy of Sophie's current laser blast power with shardless copies of all of the New Wave members' powers, save for the those of the two Dallon children. I had picked up copies of all their powers a while back, during a PRT event. I also added in a copy of Purity's power, which I had just happened to pick up yesterday.

I formed this raw material into a single power that allowed for the creation and manipulation of hard-light constructs, including force fields, concussive blasts, beams, weapons, and pretty much any shape that could be thought up. It was already a really strong and versatile power, but this was going to be Sophie's signature ability. I used a PM charge to enhance it. I shaped the infusion of energy like clay, molding and shoring up the weaknesses of the existing power until it was a nearly flawless work of art.

Sophie would be able to bring anything at all made of hard light into existence with barely a whisper of thought, and each item would persist indefinitely, until she either dismissed it or telekinetically moved it with her will. Thanks to an integrated thinker power, she would be able to make hundreds of objects at a time while controlling them all simultaneously. Her blasts would be several times stronger than Purity's, with range and precision an order of magnitude greater. She wouldn't have the versatility of effects that Legend boasted, but her blasts and constructs could be shaped with edges a single photon wide for incomparable cutting and piercing power, and their temperature and luminosity could be modified to nearly anything she wanted.

One of the few addressable weakness to Sophie's new power that I could find was that her force fields and constructs would break if enough kinetic energy was brought to bear on them. I wouldn't really be able to account for exotic effects, to I put that thought aside. Currently, the hard light fields were maybe quadruple the strength of Narwhal's, the world's current strongest force field cape. Thanks to Purity's power, energy beams could be absorbed, only adding to the constructs strength. I shrugged, and threw another PM charge at the problem, making it a Shaker 10 to 12 power easily, maybe more. Now, force fields would be able to cover square miles of area, and they would be nearly unbreakable, being both stronger and now able to absorb kinetic energy as well, to further enhance themselves. I nodded, coming out of my power creating fugue; I was done.

I had been still for a maybe ten or fifteen minutes, so I stretched a bit, before smiling at my friend. "OK, it's finished. I mixed together something special for you, Soph. A healthy dose of New Wave, a little dash of Purity, and a whole lot of special love from your truly equals a totally kickass shaker power that's stronger and more versatile than Narwhal's, with beams that are more powerful than Legend's." She gaped at me, sputtering. I wound up my arm, like a pitcher on the mound, and tossed the power at her, not bothering to leave a copy for myself. This one was just for _her_. The softly glowing ball of flickering shadows impacted Sophie Adams' chest, and then sunk in. Still floating in the air when the projectile hit her, she gently floated to the ground as it integrated itself into her being, causing a huge, dopey smile to spread across her face as the thinker part of the power connected with her mind.

"Woah," said Emma, staring at Sophie, who was floating around the treehouse on her back, incandescent with happiness, "what was _that_!?" she asked, startled. My oldest friend looked at me quizzically.

"That, my dear Emsworth, is the world's first "Shaker" twelve." I said, smirking at her. She looked at me oddly, before replying.

"I'm not a huge cape geek like you, but I'm pretty sure that what you just said, if it's true, means that your power is totally unfair, and completely bullshit." Somehow the teen was able to say that with a completely straight face, which made me laugh all the harder. Emma quickly broke down into a giggling fit, causing me to laugh all the harder. Sophie was still lying in the air, one her back, though now she had coated herself in a shadowy, nearly opaque forcefield that wrapped itself around her like a mummy sleeping bag, with only her face peeking out. Tiny men made of hard light were dancing above her face as she cooed at them in awe. I snickered at her antics.

"Ok, it's your turn Emms. What powers do you want most in the whole wide world?" I asked, a teasing note in my voice. She screwed her face up in thought, and I smiled gently at being privileged enough to see the odd expression. Emma had been mortally embarrassed about showing her natural facial expression in public ever since we were in middle school. She had been teased brutally by a group of high school boys during the whole seventh grade, and shortly enough our classmates had begun joining in. I remember seeing her practice making different, more "normal" expression in the mirror every morning before school, and every night before bed.

Afterward, the busty redheaded teen only revealed her true facial expressions when she was alone with family and her closest friends; people who accepted her unreservedly. Showing off one of her goofy faces was a sign that Emma really trusted someone, that she was comfortable being her real self with them. Besides her parents and sister, that group only included me, my mother, and more recently Sophie. I missed seeing her like this, and just hanging out with her and Sophie while being casual; it had taken away a small piece of my amalgamated soul to stay away, like I had been until today. I made a vow not to keep my distance from those who cared about me any more from now on. I wondered if I would be able to keep that promise in the future.

Emma was still thinking, so I contemplated my own feelings. 'Man,' I thought, 'things are great now that I shared my status as a "parahuman" with my friends… not to mention coming out to them.' It felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I know part of it was that my Taylor side loved these people and really, really enjoyed their company. The rest of me was really starting to appreciate them too. It was nice to have people to share things with, that accepted me. They didn't know who I truly was, and I didn't know if I could ever tell them, but at least I would be able to be myself around them.

"Ok, I know what powers I want." said Emma, startling me out of my deep thoughts. She was grinning, her smile stretching nearly from ear to ear. "I want to be able to shapeshift… into anyone or any _thing_. And I want to be able to breathe out clouds of different kinds of gasses, like teargas, or sleeping gas." The bubbly ginger grew more and more animated as she spoke, until her eyes were alight with hope and excitement. "Is that OK, or is it too much?" she asked, when I remained silent for more than a second after she had stopped speaking.

"I think I can do that… give me a minute, and I'll see what I can do." I said, teasingly and with a wink. Emma's excited squeal caused one of the still-floating Sophie's eyes to pop open. Her face was alight with shadowy laser beams, three of which sprouted from each cheek, like a cat's whiskers. She examined us for a moment, blinked, and then closed her eyes again in bliss as she continued to play with her new powers.

I concentrated, going through my library of stored powers to see what I could use as a base for Emma's signature abilities. I had copied the powers of a few local capes that could be used as a base, the most interesting of which was a young man called Browbeat. He had a strong form of self biokinesis, which technically allowed him to alter his shape however he wished, as long as he stayed biological, and didn't alter his brain. I also had changer powers from the Empire 88's Valkyrie twins, Fenja and Menja, which allowed them to increase their size by orders of magnitude, while reducing the damage they took, and increasing the power of their attacks. Hookwolf's copied power might be useful as well, at least as a base for inorganic transformations. I also added a manton unlimited version of Panacea's power into the mix, to increase the array of biological changes that could be made.

I combined all of these powers into one. I was a blacksmith, stripping off unusable parts of the components I worked with, while twisting the pieces of each power that I kept into shapes that I that could be forged together into a coherent whole. After finishing, I enhanced the conglomerate power as much as I could without adding charges. This produced a changer power that allowed its user to change themselves into anything biological, as well as many inorganic forms as well. It would allow Emma to increase her mass by at least three orders of magnitude, and to shift into any living creature she could imagine, as well as anything made out of any type of metal or other dense, rigid substance. She could also eject clouds of any substance she could turn herself into, including the gasses she had specified earlier. The changes were too slow, however, requiring minutes to grow or change her body significantly. It was time to add some metaphysical bullshit.

I threw a PM charge at the project, visualizing what I wanted; I needed this power to allow Emma to turn into _anything_ that she could imagine, _anything_ that she wanted. The power bubbled, morphing into something _more_. The result was astounding, it would indeed let my best friend change into any creature or substance that she could come up with, but the time it would take her to shift was even slower than the original. I added another charge, directing it to increase the _speed_ of the change as much as possible. I prodded the power with PM, running the numbers; it looked pretty good; the power would let her shift into even creatures as large and nearly as durable as the Endbringers in maybe half a minute.

I growled, a low dangerous sound emerging from behind my clenched teeth. It _still_ wasn't good enough! Thirty seconds was just too _long_ in a battle! I shoved two more charges at the problem, willing them to speed up the power, to streamline it, and to make it _better_. The already brightly burning orb of superhuman might that I held flared up, becoming as powerful as a tiny star. It held vast metaphysical weight, and it was easily the most powerful ability that I had yet constructed with Power Manipulation. I beheld it's jeweled depths using my inner eye, and became enraptured at the elegance and sheer beauty that I, a flawed mortal, had somehow built. When I came back to myself, as single tear was leaking from my left eye, and Emma was looking at me with slight concern and a breed of confusion tempered by her love for me. I leaned forward, stretching my long arm, and tapped her forehead, transferring _Unbound Metamorphosis_ to Emma. Again, I failed to create a copy; this treasure was solely for my friend's use.

Emma's mouth pursed, and her eyes went wide, and then wider still, until finally he blue orbs were resting _on_ _the sides of her head_ , like she was some kind of fucked up ungulate. I snickered, and she turned her head to stare at me, her skin shifting to a lovely share of aquamarine as she moved. Her mouth shot open, growing wider than her head itself, her jaw literally dropping onto the floor. Her teeth turned razor sharp, and her feet into a bear's paws. Emma let out a startled gasp, more of a muted roar really, and her spiked, silvery tongue shot out, punching a splintery hole through the wall of the tree house. She closed her eyes, and with an effort of will my oldest friend returned to normal.

"Holy shit!" yelped Sophie. It seemed that she had finally rejoined us. "What kind of crazy, fucked up power did you give her, Taylor!?" she exclaimed. I blinked; Sophie looked different. The lean muscled track star was now clothed in a skintight garment of rippling shadow, thin tendrils of azure electricity constantly flowing over and through the energy suit. A helmet of the same material covered her head, with only her face, from mid-forehead to just below her lips, visible. Her headpiece combined both rounded edges and sharp points, like some bastard child of a medieval knight's headgear and one of those ultra-slick, super expensive motorcycle helmets. Her back was adorned with two long, black, anatomically correct wings.

Sophie's wings were long, perhaps two or three times the length of her body, though they were folded up, and partially draped across her body, like a cloak. Each wing was somewhat reptilian, like a dragon or a petradactyl, but with hundreds of intricate feathers instead of membrane. The energy wielding girl had also made sword made of hard light, and it was sheathed at her waist. She had done something to it that made the blade turn a searing cobalt blue instead of the more muted black of her regular constructs. I studied the blade intently for a second, before realizing that it was made entirely of the more energetic part of her hard light material, the type that normally presented itself as the lightning bolts and swirling colors.

"Holy shit! You look awesome, Soph!" said Emma, smiling at her friend. "So _that's_ what you were doing while you were floating around; you were learning enough about your power, and practicing to make that awesome costume. Neat." she finished.

The black girl nodded in agreement. "You're damn straight. I _am_ awesome." she replied. "I _was_ pretty wrapped up, there, so spill. What powers did you pick Emms?" she asked eagerly.

"Taylor made it so that I can breath out different types of gasses… and I can change into _anything_!" she cried. "Watch!" Emma concentrated for a moment, making another one of her adorably silly faces as she so. Suddenly, almost faster than I could see, she _changed_. Gone was the Emma that I knew and loved, and standing there was fucking _Santa Claus_! She had even managed to make a perfect copy of his suit. "Ho ho ho, bitches!" cried a booming bass voice. Her belly jigged like a bowl full of jelly as she laughed, her rosy cheeks raised in a smile. Tiny eye-glasses were perched on her button nose. Grinning, Emma Claus sucked in a gigantic lungfull of air, and pursing her lips for effect, blew out a streams of frigid winter air and snowflakes. Snapping her fingers, Sophie brought up an oddly shaped force field which blocked and redirected the icy blast out the treehouse's window.

"Holy shit, Kringle, cool it with the special effects!" cried Sophie, arms crossed and teeth chattering. Emma might not have hit us directly with the cold air, but her little stunt had lowered the temperature in the little wooden room by at least twenty degrees. The girl in question, in her original shape, lay on her back laughing hysterically. I looked down at her; she was wearing a copy of the Santa outfit, sized for her regular body. I raised an eyebrow when I realized that she was not _quite_ back to normal; her, um, assets were now at least half again as massive as normal, and she was nearly a foot taller now.

"Wow Emma, tits much?" I asked, chuckling. She had settled down, and was leaning back against a pile of cushions. Now that she wasn't shaking and, er, _jiggling_ around so distractingly, I could see further changes to her form. The redhead had made herself maybe two or three years older looking, and her face was now without blemish, and perfectly symmetrical. Perhaps the biggest departure from her previous appearance was the presence of actual muscles. Emma had never been fat, or even chubby, really, but she had always had an excess of feminine softness. Memories from years ago told me that she had often been tired out just by riding her bicycle around for a twenty or thirty minutes. My oldest friend had done her best to correct that problem by taking yoga and spin classes in the past few years, but she hadn't really been built for athletics, being more of the "voluptuous" archetype. No more; Emma had chosen to retain all of her old curves, and more, but they were now built upon a stronger foundation, made up of lean, powerful muscle covered by a thin layer of fat that partially disguised her new strength.

"Thanks Tay, you fucking hypocrite." She said without heat, grinning at me. "Now that you've 'come out' as a cape, Sophie and I know how you _really_ managed to become to change in appearance so much." Sophie looked startled, not having considered my recent "flowering into adulthood" in light of the new information I had recently provided to them. I grinned at both of my friends, nodding to acknowledge Emma's point.

Sophie glanced between the two of us, and then down at her own body, frowning. She was an incredibly well muscled girl; she had to be to be such an amazing athlete, but she had never been all that curvy. I hadn't realized until now that someone so pretty might be insecure about her appearance. "Hook a sister up?" she asked in a normal tone of voice, but I heard the plea there.

Sophie was one of my best friends, so my answer was never in doubt. "K," I said, tossing her a copy of Browbeat's power. "There you go. Give it a try?"

Sophie proceeded to do just that, and shortly enough there were three of us in the treehouse with hourglass figures. I guess it was predictable that my friends would want to change their appearances; I had done so at the first opportunity I had. I surreptitiously glanced back and forth between my besties, studying their new shapes. Blushing lightly, I gulped. The cold Emma had summoned earlier must have been gone, as it was starting to get a little warm in the treehouse. Sophie was still playing with her energy fields, but Emma was playing with her hair, and she seemed to be blushing for some reason and staring at the wall near where I sat. I decided to press forward; we still had things that we needed to do.

"Ok, so now that we have the power granting and makeover portions of the sleepover out of the way, I think that we need to think about what to call ourselves. We need to come up with a cape name for each of us, and one for our group as a whole. Any thoughts?" I asked.

"Um," said Emma, "I was thinking about Chrysalis, for myself. Something that has the potential to transform into something greater… that sounds good, right?" she sounded a little unsure about the name that she had presented, but I liked it.

"That sounds awesome, Em." I complemented. "Do you have any other ideas? How about you, Sophie? Any suggestions for Emma's cape name?"

"I like Chrysalis, too. Hmm… How about 'Changeling'? Or 'Morph'." she suggested. Sophie seemed to be getting into the conversation again; I think that the bare edge of the novelty of having powers might have been starting to wear off. I was still reveling in having superhuman powers, and it had been _months_ , so I didn't expect her to be completely attentive, but it kind of sucked to lose her for large amounts of time, too.

"Hmm. I don't know about those." replied the redhead. "Morph sounds kind of masculine. And isn't a 'changeling' a monster that replaces a baby so that monsters can steal the original?" her nose wrinkled slightly in distaste.

"Well, shit." said Sophie, "Sorry Emma. I guess those aren't that great." said Sophie, slightly abashed.

"I'm going to go with Chrysalis for sure." said Emma confidently. "I really like it, and it describes my powers really well, without revealing what I can actually do."

"Great, that's a really good name, and I'm pretty sure no one is using it locally. Sophie, do you have any ideas about what you'd like to call yourself?" I asked the suddenly busty athlete. I wondered how her new figure was going to affect her running.

"I dunno, but I want a name that has to do with force fields, or energy. Maybe shadows and light, or something like that? It has to be badass, though!" she said excitedly, a big grin on her face. "Help me out guys, you know that I'm not wonderful with this kind of stuff." she pleaded.

"Well, let's see…" I said. "Hmm. Light and shadows, energy, beams, etcetera. Something badass." I muttered while I thought. "How about "Glimmer-Gloom", or "Blackbeam"." I suggested. Sophie looked doubtful. She opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly, a totally amazing idea popped into my head I shouted it out, cutting Sophie off before she could make a sound. "Wait, wait! Darkness and light! What about "Eclipse"?" I cried.

"Eclipse…" Sophie repeated slowly, as if tasting the word. "I really like it. It has to be taken, though, right?" she asked.

"Not by anyone in Brockton Bay, as far as I know. It's not like we've decided to join the Wards or something, so we don't need a completely unique name, just one that nobody around here is using." I explained. I had done my cape research in preparation for this.

"Well, then, I guess I'm going to be Eclipse!" she said. She hovered in the air, and smirking, her costume became a much darker black than it had been before, while the edges of the suit began glowing with a powerful white light, making her appearance match her namesake.

"Woah! That's awesome, Soph!" said Emma, blinking her suddenly watering eyes.

"Now for me," I said. "I already have a bit of an alternate persona that I created. I pretended to be a Tinker cape, and called myself Grant the other day, so that I could make some money and practice with my powers." I admitted. "But for our team I'm going to go with a completely different name. I don't want anyone connecting my to the appearance of Grant, as that would be bad…" I mumbled.

"Why, what did you do as 'Grant'?" asked Sophie.

"I opened up a stall at the Lord's Bizarre and sold powers to a bunch of random people." I said, wincing.

"Oh, shit!" said Emma, "What the _fuck_ were you thinking, Taylor!?" she shouted angrily. "You could have been _killed_ , or worse, captured by a the E88, or the ABB!" She was really upset, so I moved next to her in order to calm my frantic friend down.

Taking her hand, I tried to explain. "Emms, it's not that bad, really. I can't just _make_ new powers for myself, like I just did for you guys… not _easily_ , at least. But if I give other people powers, then I can copy them and modify them in all kinds of ways. I wanted to gather up a whole bunch of different powers, both for myself, and so that I could do what I did tonight, when I made those totally kickass powers for the both of you. Also, I needed some money to order some unique items, and for plans that I have."

"Taylor," said Sophie, "Why didn't you tell us this shit earlier? We could have helped you, you know? That's what friends are for." she said, walking up and giving me a hug. 'Mmm, squishy.' I thought as she embraced me tightly. I shook my head and let my slight blush subside.

"I was afraid." I said. "I wasn't sure what you and Emma would say, or do. I felt like I needed to get stronger before I told you." I hung my head, feeling hot tears began to squeeze their way out of my tightly closed eyes.

"Dummy," said Emma, but without heat. She wrapped her arms around me as well, joining Sophie in a double hug. "You didn't need to do that. Next time, just tell us what's going on, we'll _always_ be here for you." she said, emotion thick in her voice as well.

"Ok." I said demurely. I made myself a promise; if _anything_ that I couldn't deal with come up, I would seek help from my friends.

"Oh, and I _totally_ figured out what you should call yourself… _and_ our group name." said Emma smugly.

"Oh, really?" asked Sophie haughtily. "And what, pray tell, are these wonderful ideas, little miss H-cups?" she asked teasingly.

Emma blushed, but answered anyway. "Taylor should call herself "Transition", because she can switch between multiple powers any time that she wants. It makes sense, and it ties us all together into a theme, because both of our cape names involve things that involve changes. A Chrysalis is a cocoon that changes into a butterfly, and an Eclipse is the the sun changing into a shadow ringed by light." she explained. Sophie and I both nodded along; she had obviously put some thought into this.

"Alright," I said, "You've convinced me. Just call me Transition." I said, posing. I stood on one leg, with my arms held out wide.

"Dork," snorted Sophie, smirking at my antics.

"Two out of ten." said Emma deadpan, both thumbs pointed at the ground.

"Alright, my ginger comrade, if you're so smart, why don't you tell us the team name that you've so kindly chose for our little group." I taunted.

"Revolution." she said with a completely straight face. Sophie and I both started at her, our minds awhirl. Glancing back and forth between each other, we somehow communicated without words. Simultaneously we began clapping, and after moment, Sophie put two fingers into her mouth and produced a piercing whistle. Emma blushed prettily, as we made a scene, but she looked pleased.

We talked long into the night, after I shared my "no sleep" power with my two best friends, and now teammates. We needed some practice with our powers, and to finalize our costumes. We needed to decide on a few things, and to come up with some group tactics, as well as strategies. We needed to do a lot of things, but we that wouldn't slow us down much.

Revolution was going to take Brockton Bay by storm. And once we had shown the local cape community just how powerful and dedicated we were by cleaning up the city. Well... after that, there was the world.


	5. Being Taylor is a Thing - Interlude 1

**Being Taylor is** _ **a**_ _**Thing**_

 **Interlude 1 - Everyone Overreacts**

 **Cauldron Base - Unknown Alternate Earth - January 1st 2011, 22:38 PST**

Contessa laid in bed completely still, not moving a single muscle. She was still capable of seeing and hearing, but to actually do so brought nothing but agony. One of the staff had thoughtfully turned down the lights, and left a glass of water on her bedside. Probably Custodian; there were others who helped with those sorts of tasks, but Custodian had taken a particular liking for her, Gods know why.

Currently, Contessa's world was _agony_. Her head was pounding like a bass drum, and lightning quick, shooting pains surged through her mind with every suddering breath that she took. She had somehow been reduced to this state by asking for a single path, one that she had asked for nearly every day since she had managed to slay an alien God. Not even the specially designed medication that Cauldron had developed for Thinker headaches had helped; it had only just taken the edge off enough that she had stopped shrieking with each pulse of pain.

She had asked a routine question, the _most important_ question: "Path to saving the world.". She had received a sudden surge of information that she simply _couldn't_ understand, and then the headache had struck, causing her to collapse to the ground, screaming bloody murder. Doctor Mother had given her an unimpressed look, but had helped her to her quarters and dosed her with the medication. One of the organizations doctors had given her a brief check up under the watchful eye of the leader of Cauldron, pronouncing her condition a result of massive overuse of her power.

The world's most powerful Thinker didn't even have the wherewithal to protest that she had only used her ability a single time today, before Doctor Mother muttered something obscene under her breath as she walked out the door. Contessa had never wished more than now that she had taken the time to learn a common language with her coworkers, rather than using on her power to translate each time. Two recurring thoughts kept running through her brain as it was continually tortured; 'I need to develop some skills of my own.' and 'Doctor Mother is a cunt.'.

It was two days before Contessa was able to drag herself out of bed, and another three until she felt it was safe to use her power. By that time, however, it was too late; she could no longer find a Path to killing Scion. Apparently, killing him was simply not possible any longer. Doctor Mother was _furious_ at the Thinker for her power failing, presenting much more anger than she had ever shown David for his own abilities growing impotence. For some reason, however, Contessa hadn't been able to feel anything other than relief. She had never been able to model Scion directly, but now she wasn't able to model his actions at all, even obliquely. The fate of the human race wasn't resting solely on _her_ shoulders any more.

 **. . .**

 **PRT Building - Earth Bet - March 14th 2011, 10:32 PST**

PRT Regional Director for the Eastern United States Emily Piggot scowled, swinging her head around in all directions, taking care to direct the angry glare plastered across her face at each and every one of the assembled capes and PRT agents in the large conference room where they had gathered at her behest. Externally, the picture the Regional Director presented to her subordinates was the very definition of simmering, impatient anger. How she _actually_ felt about this monumental clusterfuck, however, was an entirely different story. Emily Piggot was angry, this was true, but mostly she was _frightened_ by the inexplicable events that were currently the focus of her attention.

Fear was not an emotion that she was accustomed to feeling these last several years. After the sheer, mind-killing terror that she had experienced during her little jaunt to Ellisburg, nearly everything else was tame in comparison. She doubted that anyone in the room would ever have thought of her as fearful; surely the Hero of Ellisburg was above such a plebeian thing as feeling emotions. Due to the reverential way people treated her, sometimes Emily thought that the teeming masses might believe her if she told them she defecated solid gold. She was the Slayer of Nilbog, after all; surely something like shitting precious metals was easy compared to killing an eldritch horror like Nilbog.

The cruel creature creating cape had summarily slaughtered scores of parahumans using his army of unstoppable monsters, and Emily had managed to killed him with only a nine millimeter service pistol, a kabar combat knife, and her bare hands when her weapons weren't quite enough to finish the job. Ending Nilbog's threat would have been a heroic enough feat for an entire team of capes, as individually his monsters were a match for many a parahuman. That a single, normal, unpowered human had done such a thing was the stuff legends were made of. The last time she had bothered to check, there had been two movies and a TV miniseries based on this epic feat. Emily didn't bother to watch them, but she sure as shit spent the money that the production companies sent her for the privilege of using her name and likeness in their films.

Piggott had been able to write her own check ever since the day she walked past the unmanned security cordon around Ellisburg, carrying that bastard Nilbog's severed head in one hand, while keeping her own entrails from spilling all over the ground with the other. These days she was at the very top of the Parahuman Response Team's elite, one of only four regional Directors who reported directly to the Chief Director of the PRT, Costa-Brown herself. They had toyed with offering her a mere city Directorship at first, but Emily had managed to leverage the massive amount of political capital her improbable victory had generated to get the fledgling PRT to create a brand new position for her. If the Chief Director hadn't been so well connected, then Emily would have had _her_ job, and the woman knew it. The PRT had basically no choice but to accede to her demands.

Rebecca Costa-Brown herself had created the Regional Directorship title specifically for her, though since then three other outstanding people had been tapped to administrate the other three regions of the country. Having a clear chain of command between the various branches of the PRT and the chief director had actually helped their cause a great deal, and had substantially cut down on infighting in the organization. There were rumors that a Canadian regional director would soon be selected, for the branches up north. A Mexican Regional Director might be in the works as well, if the PRTs talks with their government this coming June worked out like Piggott thought they would.

Emily was in charge of the largest region in the PRT, having authority over all of the Protectorate and PRT locations in the eastern United States from Michigan down through Mississippi and eastward. This included nineteen different branches in total, which was nearly double the number any of her three counterparts had to oversee. There had been talks of breaking her territory up into two separate regions, but she had successfully quashed that proposal each time it had been brought up. The last such incident had seen the Director proposing the change, an aggressive little rat bastard called Tagg, dismissed from the PRT with cause. She remembered his shocked face when she had fired him, and couldn't help but curl her lips into a cruel little smile at the thought.

Each Regional Director had a central office, but they weren't often used except during emergencies. They were more secure repositories for servers and paper files, and training facilities for PRT agents. Emily, and afterward the other Regional Directors, tended to rotate through their cities of responsibility, spending a week or two at each one before moving on. This allowed her to get a feel for the strengths and weaknesses of each of her subordinates commands. Out of all of Emily's branches, the redheaded stepchild of the bunch was undoubtedly the one she currently inhabited; The PRT East-North-East branch, located in Brockton Bay.

Since she had arrived in Brockton Bay, nearly everything had been going wrong. Thomas Calvert, the PRT Director for Brockton Bay, and one of the few people besides herself who had survived the Ellisburg Incident, had promptly gone on leave. Using several weeks of his accumulated vacation time, the man had filed his request over the internet, and then promptly left town. That was simply _not_ _done_! A good PRT Director was expected to work 60-80 hours a week for their entire career, and to seldom, _if ever_ , use their time off, instead trading in all of their vacation time at the end of each year for extra pay. Legally, she couldn't deny him his leave, but she was _not_ a happy bureaucrat. Thomas's dick move left his deputy, Renick, technically in charge of the PRT, which left _her_ in charge in actuality… in addition to her numerous _other_ duties.

Emily was not pleased with this situation _at all_. If Calvert hadn't been another survivor, she would have canned his ass in three seconds, whether it was justified or not. As it was, she was looking forward to his return so that she could dump a ton of shit jobs on him. Difficult, ungrateful, and yet necessary work that she had been saving up for just such an asshole as he had shown himself to be. She smirked, imagining the look on his face when he realized what kinds of tasks that he would _personally_ have to do; she would make _damn_ sure that he didn't foist her punishment jobs off onto one of his subordinates, even if she had to teleconference in and watch him perform each and every one of them herself. Smirking maliciously, Piggott made a note to do just that; getting a front row seat for Calvert's humiliation would be simply _delicious_.

 **.** **.** **.**

Emily focused on the current problem. In the last three days, at least _twenty_ new parahumans had shown up in Brockton Bay, and every one of them that she and her officers had managed to speak with had claimed something previously thought impossible. Each of the super powered humans had claimed that he or she had not obtained their powers by _triggering,_ like every other known parahuman to date, but rather that they had instead _purchased_ their powers. It was an incredible claim, one that almost beggared belief. Sure, there had been whispers about a secret group that sold powers in a vial for several years, but after a thorough investigation by the Chief Director herself, the entire matter had been revealed to be nothing more than unsubstantiated rumor.

This new outbreak, however, was looking more and more real all the time. All of the information gathered so far pointed to a single source for this rash of new superhumans; a cape calling himself "Grant". Purportedly, this enigmatic individual wore a suit of incredibly advanced powered armor, and supposedly sold superpowers like a sweet shop sold candy... and with just as much ease. Based on corroborated reports of the advanced technology that this Grant made use of, as well as the cape's high-tech costume, she had tentatively assigned him a primary Tinker 10 rating, with a Trump 9 sub-rating, though both rating were likely to increase as more details came to light.

Emily hadn't brought anyone outside of Brockton Bay in on this investigation yet, outside of her most trusted lieutenants from the Regional office, and then only the ones that she had personally vetted. Being the leader of the ENE Protectorate, she had been forced to include Armsmaster, and his deputy Miss Militia. Speculation was that Grant's Tinker specialty might be something as ludicrous as the creation and implantation of parahuman powers. None of the new capes had any technological devices implanted into them, so Armsmaster and the two Thinkers she had brought in, back at the Regional office, had speculated that there might be some kind of device which caused artificial triggers, or simply implanted powers somehow. She had snorted when Armsmaster had suggested the explanation, but after twelve more parahumans had been linked to Grant in the last few days, she was coming to wonder if he hadn't been right on the money.

Supposedly, Grant had turned at least two dozen regular people into parahumans, all in less than a day. Taken out of context, it was laughable that someone could wield that kind of power and remain completely unknown for any length of time. She had tried to dismiss this new headache as insanity and outright lies when the first of what would become a procession of brand new capes had strolled through the doors of the PRT building to sign up with the Protectorate, but she was not longer able to afford the luxury of her previous disbelief in the face of this situation's grim reality.

Her uncharitable thoughts concerning the first would-be hero's explanation for his powers certainly hadn't stopped her from signing him up, of course… Some capes believed that their parahuman abilities were actually _magic_ , a miracle from God, or some other crackpot bullshit. The PRT's policy was to quietly nod while silently playing along with these delusions. The PRT had become all the stronger for their tolerance of such utter tripe; Myrddyn, the leader of the Chicago Protectorate, was a great example of how successful this policy had been. Emily didn't particularly like this policy herself, but she had to admit that tolerating parahumans' various neuroses was an easy path to getting them to join, and afterward remain affiliated with the Protectorate.

In her experience, Piggott had noticed that capes tended to get rather _murdery_ when their idiotic, wrongheaded power theories were questioned. She had even read a report written by one crackpot cape who had claimed that her power came from a connection between her brain and a mountain sized fragment of a giant, mutant space whale. It was easily the most ludicrous example of these power theories that she has ever heard of. Hell, even "magic" was more likely, and made more sense, than " _giant mutant space whales did it_ " for Christ's sake. The worst part of it was that outside of this wacky bullshit, the heroine in question, Miss Militia, was one of the most level headed and capable parahumans that Piggott had ever encountered. She 'tisked' sadly; Emily hadn't really _wanted_ to promote a social retarded gloryhound like Armsmaster to the head of the Protectorate ENE team, but when his only competition for the spot believed that powers came from chunks of giant mutant space whales, and not from the obvious, scientifically accepted source, the Corona Pollentia and Gemma nodes in the brain, well… She really hadn't had any choice in the matter, had she?

Piggott had chatted with the new cape for a bit, had some preliminary testing done to prove that he actually had powers, and then inducted the new hero into the Protectorate without delay. The newbie had a very strong and versatile Shaker power which let him manipulate and even generate both metal and electricity. Somehow, this power also let him ignore and redirect inertia, giving him a decent Brute rating. He had a fucking _healing aura_ as well, though God knows how that worked. If each one of these powers hadn't been so strong, then he would have been called a "grab bag" cape; as it was, two out of the three researchers doing his power testing had suspicious that he was some sort of Trump.

Piggott had been excited; healers were incredibly rare, and recruiting one would be not only be a feather in her cap, but it would also attract further recruits for both the local Protectorate and PRT branches in the future. People tended to like the idea of being able to walk away from missions which resulted in injuries without weeks or months of recovery time; humans were funny like that. The Regional Director had been beyond pleased with this new cape, even before he had introduced her to his son, _another_ recent trigger, whose power was some unholy conglomerate of Alexandria package and flying artillery. He wasn't on par with Alexandria in any one area except speed, where he slightly outpaced her, though he was close enough nearly everywhere else. Between his toughness and his capability for regeneration, Leroy Brown had netted solid Brute six and Mover five ratings. The "Quantum Blaster" beams that he fired, as he insisted on calling them, were also fairly powerful, worthy of a Blaster 5 rating all on their own. Here was another stupendously strong and versatile cape, just like his father.

An obvious blue collar type, Jason Brown, AKA Kinetic Knight, as he had called himself, had actually seemed relatively well balanced. This was quite rare for a brand new cape, in Emily's long experience. He acted so much like a _normal_ person that she had to remind herself twice while interviewing him that he was actually a parahuman, let alone a fresh trigger. He had displayed none of the regular nervous fidgeting or the aura or barely restrained violence that freshly minted parahumans tended to exhibit. The Regional Director suspected that his trigger event must have been quite mild to produce this sort of demeanor after just a few days. Maybe it had something to do with his healing aura? She didn't know, and didn't especially care, except that it was a minor mystery. She had been pleased enough at the new recruit that she even managed to stop herself from having him locked up after he told her about his 'always on' healing aura _last,_ after she had already spent over an hour in his presence. It had been _long_ _enough_ , though, according to the PRT's head doctor, that the aches and pains that hadn't ever quite left her since Ellisburg weren't troubling her nearly as bad afterward.

Dreams of the Brockton Bay Protectorate being about to field another cape in with as much stopping power as Dauntless, and in a few years having a _real_ Alexandria cape on the Protectorate roster for this lackluster branch, and not just a pathetic "soft" version like that little twerp in the Wards, _Ajax_ , or whatever he was called, had swam through her head. 'Maybe, just maybe,' she had thought, 'Brockton Bay can actually start actually _pushing back_ against the savage criminal fucks that this city is infested with, and not just keep barely holding the line like they've been forced to do.' She still held out hope that the worst city in her region, in the country in fact, not to mention her biggest headache, might actually become less of a black mark on her otherwise superb record.

It had all been going so well, especially when she received notice that _another_ pair of capes had arrived to join up with the Protectorate. If none of the four ended up backing out during the mandatory cool down period that those assholes in DC mandated them to advise new capes of, then she might just match Chief Director Costa-Brown's record for the greatest number of new heros signed in a single day. She had delegated Acting Director Renick to the task of inducting the two new arrivals as she was in the process of finishing up the initial paperwork for Jason and Leroy Brown. Just as Emily placed her signature on the last of the forms in front of her, a harried looking PRT agent arrived to tell her that another _three_ new capes had just entered the lobby, with the stated purpose of joining the Protectorate.

Piggott looked at the new arrivals remotely, using her notebook computer to view them through the networked cameras in the lobby. All three of the latest arrivals were wearing a mixture of cheap halloween and home sewn garments, as new capes were generally forced to do. When the officer at the front desk questioned them, at Piggott's ordered quickly using her radio, each cape claimed to have bought their powers, just as both of the Browns had in their interview. A wave of ice worked its way down the Regional Director's spine; she just _knew_ that all of today's "good fortune" had been nothing but a lie, and that life was once more out to fuck up all of her plans and hard work. Briefly furious, her face went red. She squeezed the edge of the desk she was sitting at so hard that it caused her knuckles to turn white and her well toned arm to flex powerfully, veiny muscles bulging.

Emily went silent for a moment as she gathered herself. Sighing, the muscular Regional Director squared her shoulders and began issuing orders to her attentive subordinates. Glen Chambers, the head of the PRT's public relations department, had been visiting the ENE branch that day, so Piggott 'requested' that he be the one to induct the three new arrivals in the lobby. Being a task that he was both suited to, and one that he happened to enjoy, despite it not being in his technical job description, Glen readily agreed. At the same time, the Regional Director called in a few of her most trusted department heads, as well as Armsmaster and Miss Militia. A few moments later in a small conference room, Piggott had the five others present updated on the current situation. As the other members of the PRT and Protectorate considered what their boss had told them, they sat in the stunned silence that had permeated the room. It took a few moments before anyone had the wherewithal to speak.

Gillian "Jilly" Moore, the young, dark haired head of Parahuman Sciences in the PRT East Region, began. "Well, shit. If there's someone in the Bay with the ability to give normal people real, permanent powers, then we need to find him as soon as possible. This could either be the start of something amazing… Imagine what Dragon could do if she could replicate Grant's process... Or this could be the beginning of a nightmare."

Armsmaster inclined his head. "Agreed," the hero supplied woodenly. "We should make finding this "Grant" our highest priority."

Emily frowned. "I'm more worried about proof of Grant's existence, and a description of his ability, getting out to the general public. If people see and hear more than rumors and backroom whispers that this is real, then literally every criminal organization in town is going to be trying their best to either capture or recruit him."

Michael Sweeney, the PRT East's Regional Public Perception Specialist, decided to weigh in with his two cents. His silvered mustache twitched as he spoke, causing him to absently stroke it, as one might pet a nervous dog to sooth it. He had been working on a slim, tinker-tech derived tablet computer as soon as Piggott had begun supplying the small group with information, looking at the device's display intently. He spoke abruptly, tearing his eyes away from the screen reluctantly as he did. "I've been watching PHO, as well as several other social media sites. It looks like there's a thread about this 'Grant', that was started just over a day ago. Three of the people who posted in the thread are claiming to have been sold powers yesterday at the Lord's Market Bizarre. Apparently Grant used either his powers, or a piece of tinker-tech, to instantly create a small building out of stone in a parking lot, before using it as a storefront for his power sales operation." Armsmaster stared at the elderly gentleman intently, while Piggott scowled.

Sweeney ignored them both, continuing. "I checked yesterday's PRT hotline and 911 logs, and there were exactly _zero_ reports about _anything_ like that happening. One of the comments in the thread, from a reliable local poster, said that most of the people at the bizarre were conveniently ignoring Grant's shop, which incidentally had a huge sign which said "Powers for Sale" on it."

Piggott scowled, "So he might have tinkertech with some kind of Master or Stranger ability, or an additional parahuman working with him. He could even have multiple parahuman accomplices, considering that he has the ability to manufacture capes faster than normal Tinkers can churn out ray guns. Either way, this is going to make him a complete _bitch_ to capture."

Miss Militia cleared her throat. "Should we be worried about capturing him at all, at this point? So far Grant doesn't seem to have done anything except strengthen us by empowering people who then decided to join the Protectorate. Based on how many of those that he supposedly empowered turned up today, he might even be screening people for those who have heroic tendencies. So far, I'm not finding anything that he's done to be a crime." she finished.

Armsmaster quickly shot off a reply to his second in command, his bearded mouth contorted into a harsh frown. "That's incredibly naive. Grant's far too dangerous to be left to his own devices. What if he empowers a criminal, either by choice or by mistake? That would be even worse than selling weapons to regular criminals, and that _is_ a crime. And what if he decides that he's not content to sell powers, and decides to rob a bank or to take over a city? If the rate at which he allegedly produced these artificial parahumans is sustainable, then we're looking at the possibility of fighting _thousands_ of them in any scenario where he goes villain."

Miss Militia scowled, and when she next spoke there was heat in her voice. "So Grant automatically loses his freedom and all of his rights simply because he has a potentially dangerous power? All he's done with it so far is use it to benefit others. We've had Protectorate trained heroes go bad before, capes who learned how to use their powers to much greater effect with our help than they ever would have on their own. Does that mean that the Protectorate should be abolished because we have the capability to produce powerful individuals? I think that we should certainly try to find Grant and try to convince him to join the Protectorate, or at least to work with us, but any thoughts of capturing him should be left off the table unless he actually _does something illegal_. Otherwise, _we're_ the ones violating the law." Miss Militia had forced a cool look onto her face by the time she finished speaking, but her weapon kept shifting back and forth between her copy of Masamune's plasma thrower, and her favorite anti-material rifle, indicating her ire.

Piggott sighed, suddenly weary. 'Fuck today.' she thought rebelliously.' Parahumans were _always_ arguing, if they weren't outright fighting. She replied to her quarreling soldiers. "We _are_ going to keep an eye out for Grant, but making peaceful contact is the our one and _only_ objective once we've successfully located him. Overall, our most important priority right now is to keep this matter as contained as possible. Since the public has been aware of Grant for over a day, then there is little to no chance that we can suppress his existence at this point. Regardless, I want anything new that we find out from this point forward to be kept absolutely quiet."

Piggott looked her Public Perception officer, her eyes piercing. "Michael, your job is to muddy the waters on the Internet, especially on PHO. I want you to do anything you can to make people believe that Grant's thread is a hoax. Hopefully the gangs will take this to heart, and we can convince them that this is simply a prank. We don't want them getting interested enough to try tracking Grant down." She turned to the Protectorate leader, "Armsmaster, you will work with Mr. Sweeney on this issue. I'm authorizing you to initiate contact with Dragon if you need help; tell her I'll owe her one if she's willing to assist us with this campaign."

The Regional Director turned to face the sole female hero in the room. "Militia, I want you leading the search for Grant, but in your civvies. I don't want to spook him by sending a uniformed hero after him. The last thing I want is to make a powerful new Tinker think the Protectorate is gunning for him if spots you. Renick, give Miss Militia as many men, and any other assistance that she requires. We'll all meet up tomorrow at 6PM to compare notes." She looked around, making eye contact with everyone. Renick averted his eyes when she met his gaze, causing Piggot to snort in amusement. The deputy director blushed. "You have your orders, people. Dismissed."

As her subordinates were filing out of the room, Piggott stopped Renick by placing her hand on his shoulder. Renick was a fairly short man, so he was just about the same height as Piggott, who was a little taller than the average woman. Hands on her hips, Emily flexed her well defined biceps, causing her suit jacket to creak dangerously. Renick's blush, which hadn't entirely faded from earlier, returned with a vengeance. Emily leered at him, her smile feral. "I'm going to need you to come with me, Nicholas." she said, striding out of the room. Renick followed Piggott meekly, not having the confidence to ask her what she wanted to talk to him about, or even where they were headed. As he followed the Regional Director, Rennick found that his eyes kept landing on her small, tight backside. Smirking, Emily took his arm as they stepped out of the elevator door into the PRT building's parking garage together, and lead him to her vehicle.

"You're an interesting fellow, Renick," murmured Piggott, her eyes taking in his compact, well toned form. "You're quiet, and professional which I like, not to mention discrete. And after such a stressful day, I find myself in need of just such a man." Rennick didn't say anything, but he smiled. She hadn't yet released his arm, and he could feel the swell of her bosom beneath her well tailored suit jacket.

"What say you and I get to know each other a little better, in the interest of fostering a more, uh, cooperative work environment?" asked Piggott. Rennick managed to mumble his assent. Emily pressed the button on her keyfob, unlocking her "car", which was actually an enormous black Hummer H1 with chrome accents. She motioned to the passenger door with her keys. Renick whimpered, but he was sporting a sheepish smile as he entered the gas guzzler, and the door was closed enthusiastically behind him.

Emily rolled her eyes as she climbed into the driver's seat, her own smile in place. Unlike Rennick's, though, hers had a predatory cast to it. The car's engine started up, and the large vehicle began moving; slowly at first, but soon it began to pick up speed. Suddenly the vehicle sped up, moving very quickly for a moment, before coming to an abrupt stop.

About twenty minutes after the two PRT Directors entered the Hummer, it shifted into gear and pulled away, leaving the Regional Director's assigned parking spot empty.

 **. . .**

Two days later, and two more meetings of the Regional Director and the few trusted subordinates of hers that originally tackled the problem, and they had completely failed to turn up hide nor hare of Grant. By this time a full three quarters of those empowered by Grant had come forward to the PRT, to either join the Protectorate or inquire about joining. The ENE's roster of heroes and wards had swollen enormously. The local Protectorate team now sported twenty-two full heroes, and the Wards team now boasted twenty-five members. Several of the heroes that had shown up had declined membership for one reason or another, leaving to pursue other options. There were now two new teams of PRT affiliated vigilantes in the bay, one non-affiliated team, as well as several rogues and independant heroes.

The "secret" of Grant's existence, had been rendered much less of one thanks to the tidal wave of new capes, though thankfully the gangs had been experiencing even less luck in finding the reclusive Tinker than the PRT, if that were possible, thanks mostly to the fact that there were so many new heroes on the streets pushing them back. Criminals everywhere were finding it hard just to remain free of jail, let alone to operate their clandestine businesses. True to Miss Militia impression of Grant's character, not a single one of those he'd empowered had turned to villainy.

While there was a huge amount of speculation online about the unprecedented amount of new triggers in Brockton Bay, thanks to the efforts of Sweeney, Armsmaster, and most especially Dragon, the idea that it was due to Grant's existence was considered a conspiracy theory at best, with anyone suggesting it being ridiculed unmercifully. The newly empowered capes had been made to sign a temporary agreement not to divulge any information about Grant, with a sizeable amount of cash given to each of them as an enticement.

At Sweeney's suggestion, Dragon had fabricated a story that a mass trigger event took place during the Lord's Market Bizarre, even providing fake witness accounts and proof that it happened. Those outside of the bay seemed more inclined to believe that there had been some kind of "natural" multi-trigger event, than the idea that there was some kind of parahuman power Tinker running around. Piggott was thankful for this fact; otherwise the city would be completely inundated with people looking to buy powers. As it was, several hundred desperate people _had_ shown up looking for the elusive parahuman power salesman, even though the consensus was that he didn't really exist.

This morning, Piggott had been woken up at 4AM by a phone call directly from the Chief Director, Rebecca Costa-Brown, who had proceeded to demand answers about Grant, and as to the reason why she hadn't been informed about the situation before now. It was all Piggott could do to answer the furious questions directed at her, and to keep overall control of the fact of the matter was that although she should have informed Costa-Brown of the development, Piggott _had_ managed to keep a lid on the situation, and had successfully recruited over thirty capes to the Protectorate and Wards in the process. The facts were, no one else had found out anything at all about Grant, and the gangs in the city were now mostly in hiding due to the overwhelming hero presence on the streets; this had definitely bought the Regional Director a little leeway, though the Chief Director still wasn't happy.

Emily had been notified that Alexandria herself would be arriving shortly to take charge of the no longer covert manhunt for Grant. She would be accompanied by three teams of elite PRT Troopers, and a group of four Protectorate Thinkers who would be working under the Triumvirate member to help locate the so-far elusive powers Tinker. Piggott had been able to keep overall strategic control of the Grant situation, though Alexandria would have tactical control in the field over the newly arriving troops and capes. Piggott frowned; she didn't like ceding control of _anything_ in her cities to _anyone_ , but even she knew that she had to answer to the Chief Director. When Piggott became Chief Director someday, hopefully soon, she would expect nothing less from her subordinates.

 **. . .**

All of these factors, and more, are what had led Emily Piggott to her current predicament, her fear, and the angry glare plastered across her face, as she faced the assembled crowd of PRT officers and Protectorate capes, including Alexandria, in the PRT ENE's largest conference room. She frowned directly at the overpowered Brute, her eyes pushing all the blame and contempt she could muster at the celebrated hero for her current lack of control over the potentially explosive situation, before moving on to the next person in the crowd.

"We're here today to discuss a new suspected Tinker, codename "Grant". Here's what we know so far about him..." She proceeded to explain everything that she and the others in the PRT and Protectorate had learned so far about the power bestowing cape, using a powerpoint presentation compiled by Rennick as a visual aid. The meeting lasted for too long, and in the end her agents and capes learned little enough. She sighed as everyone, save for Alexandria, filed out the door.

"Don't worry Piggott," said the cape, her voice full of confidence, "I'll find our man." Emily could almost make out the sneer on the parahuman's face beneath the tinted glass of her full-head helmet.

"Oh, I have little doubt of that." said the Regional Director lightly. "I'm _very_ familiar with your reputation." she said, sneering right back at the pretentious bitch. "The only question I have is if you'll bring him in alive, or if he'll have a 'mysterious accident' along the way." She grinned savagely, "Maybe all we'll recover of him is a red smear on a wall, and a few skin and bone fragments?"

"I'm not sure what you're implying, but I have no intention of killing anyone." Alexandria's voice was like ice now, the overly confident, almost mocking tone from earlier completely gone now. "I want to bring in Grant just as much as you do."

Piggott smiled right back, her mind barely registering the harsh inflection in the cape's tone. A single thought ran through her head as she gave one of the most powerful Brutes on record a genuine smile. 'Bitch, I've ended monsters worse than you.' she thought. Out loud, she said, "That's good. Because if there's on hair harmed on his head when you bring him in, I'm going to hold you _personally responsible_." The Triumvirate member didn't reply.

Piggott walked away, striding rapidly from the room. When she was nearly out the door she turned her head to look directly at the motionless form of Alexandria, who was still standing in the middle of the room glaring at her back. "Good hunting, _Becky_." Emily mouthed silently with a smirk, knowing that the cape would read her lips.

Alexandria shot into the air, punching through the bulletproof glass of the conference room's window like it was tissue paper as she rapidly disappeared into the sky. Piggott smirked, and snorted air from her nostrils in the parody of a chuckle. 'Capes are such prima donnas,' she thought, 'always willing to resort to property damage and conflict as the first response to any situation.'

She knew that you had to put parahumans in their place to start with, or else they would inevitably push the envelope and escalate the situation, whatever it may be. The fact that the parahuman in question was secretly her boss, and the leader of the PRT, mattered not a whit to her. If you didn't get the upperhand to begin with, and then keep it, then normal humans like her would inevitably lose. She had learned that lesson first hand from Nilbog, when she jumped his idiotic ass as he was explaining to her how superior he was to her, and everyone else in the world.

Regional Director Emily Piggott had known, since the very moment four years ago when she had accidentally discovered that her boss was secretly the hero Alexandria, that eventually a situation like this would arise, when she would need to pit herself against the parahuman. It was in their nature to seek conflict, they just couldn't help it. So Emily had bided her time, gathering information on Rebecca Costa-Brown and her alter ego. She then insured, that in the event anything at all happened to her, this damning knowledge would be revealed to the world at large.

Last year, in a very public place, Emily had revealed that she knew this secret to Rebecca Costa-Brown, letting her know in no uncertain terms that if she happened to disappear, or if she were prevented from contacting certain people and sending certain messages at particular times, that this information would go public in a very big way. Oh, the cape had played dumb to begin with, but soon she had broken her facade and agreed to play ball. Piggott had made no secret to her intention and goals; all she wanted was to be the Chief Director, and that she was more than willing to wait until whenever it was Costa-Brown decided to step down… as long as it didn't take her _too many_ years to do so.

Rebecca had promised that when she stepped down, she would nominate Emily as her successor, and just like that they were no longer at odds with each other. Sure, there had been a few token threats, and several attempts to destroy all the copies of her secret knowledge, but she had taken the PRT's anti-Thinker protocols to heart. She had encoded the information with a cipher that used Scions movements over a period of time, translated into GPS coordinates, as the key; something that no known Thinker could predict. There were many other security measures besides, and innumerable copies of the information. Still, she knew that she was playing a dangerous game.

Piggott snorted again, as she watched the cape in question fly away. The scarred, well muscled woman made a note to have accounting deduct the cost of the window from Alexandria's wages, and for an official reprimand to be placed in her file. Emily smiled as she walked to her office; there was paperwork yet to be done today. Sure, she was playing a dangerous game… but in truth, she didn't know how to play any other type.


	6. Chapter 4

**Being Taylor is** _ **a**_ _**Thing**_

 **Chapter 4 - Being Taylor is** _ **Heroic**_ **!**

The next day was a school day, which for nearly anyone else would have meant a stop to our power-assisted fun and games. Thankfully, I was able to use one of the new day's fresh PM charges to nudge a copy of mom's-Annette's-clone power into a brand new ability which I shared with my friends. It allowed all of us to split our bodies into two permanent clones and live our lives from two different perspectives at the same time. The PM charge insured that each of the clones was able to use our full range of abilities, and allowed the copies to auto-resurrect if either of them died, so long as one body was still alive. Emma was ecstatic that she could be in two different places at once. Sophia was a little bummed out that she still had to attend class, even if she would also be able to use her new powers at the same time; Emma and I both gave her a little ribbing for that, until she realized how silly she was being.

I thought back to last night, wondering if the precautions I had taken would be enough. I had long since discovered that I had the "Blank" perk, so I was completely shrouded from attempts by hostile parahumans to divine information about me, but because "Blank" wasn't actually a power, I wasn't able to copy and share it out with my friends. Before I had begun empowering and discussing important things with Emma and Sophie last night, I had modified a copy of my perception filter power, changing it from a striker ability into a permanently active stranger/trump power which actively shielded the holder of this power from any thinker abilities that they didn't specifically allow to affect them. I had given each of the two girls a copy of this power, and had explained it to them in depth later in the evening, including my reasons for providing it to them without first telling them. Thankfully, both of them had taken it well, and easily understood the utility of protecting them from hostile information gathering powers.

Our copies headed off to school after getting ready, while our superpowered alter egos headed off to my workshop so that we could talk about costumes. We had designed a logo for our little group the night before, and even if Sophia and Emma could provide their own costumes using their respective powers, I needed to make a costume for myself. I guess I could make one using powers, but Tony Stark's memories and instincts were practically screaming at me to wear a suit of armor instead. Now that my powers were honed to such a high level, and I had such a diversity of them, none but the most technologically advanced and destructive of his armored suits would provide much of a benefit to me.

Sure, I needed Tony's skills for the future of humanity, but I had to wonder at the usefulness of his knowledge for direct crime fighting. Besides, I didn't want to associate my "Transition" identity with "Grant". Despit the fact that I hadn't done much about it, I was at least partially aware of how much I had upset the status quo with my little shop three days ago. The PRT were practically in a tizzy, and there were hundreds or thousands of desperate people searching the streets for my power selling alter ego. I didn't want to be mobbed, or to have the PRT humiliate themselves by trying to arrest me… that wouldn't be conducive to any of my plans.

Sophie and Emma were playing with both their powers, and a couple of hyper-advanced tablet computers that I had gifted them in my lab, while I worked on my new costume. Using my matter manipulation summoning powers, it was insanely easy to create the correct materials, shape them into the right parts, and then quickly and flawlessly assemble my new costume. I chose to go with something vaguely high-tech, but understated, and most importantly very distinct from Grant's Iron Man-like power armor. My costume had a black neck-to-toes undersuit that was made out of a nigh indestructible super polymer that both wicked away sweat, and protected me quite nicely from several types of common parahuman attacks.

Over the black undersuit I wore a set of insanely protective unpowered armor. I fitted it with several extras which would come in handy, but thanks to my own strength and durability, powered armor would actually slow me down unless I had a couple of months to work on it, as well as a horde of exotic materials to construct it from. My suit, when finished, looked pretty neat. It was a combination of a knight's armor, but high tech, sharing some of the design elements from the heros in "Big Hero 6", which I was a fan of. I was proud of the color scheme that I had designed. The suit was done in metallic tones throughout, and started out red at the top of helmet, then transitioning to yellow, green, blue, and violet, representing the entire spectrum of visible radiation. In a fit of inspiration, I had made the armor's exterior an active display, allowing the colors to slowly rotate and shift, giving it an odd but incredibly cool looking appearance.

I composed the armor panels of an alloy of Proto Adamantium and Vibranium which I combined together in a novel way that was only possible due to my bullshit abilities. The resultant alloy allowed the new material to share the indestructibility and energy negation effects of its constituent parts. Using this metal, my suit of armor was actually tougher and harder to destroy than my Brute self, something that all armored costumes should aspire to. The weakest point of my costume was the visor of my helmet, as the transparent crystalline allotrope of the Vibromantium™ that I had created for this piece was only around two thirds as strong as the thicker opaque areas. Still, I doubted that any current parahuman was as well protected as I currently was, outside of perhaps the Siberian projection. I made sure to make the visor outwardly reflective, which helped conceal my identity.

In the center of my chestpiece I placed the symbol we had come up with for our group, Revolution. We had gone for something classic, yet distinctive to us, something unmistakable. We had come up with a line drawing of a gauntleted fist, raised up in the classic symbol of anger and change known worldwide as a symbol of those undertaking revolutions and popular uprisings. Our stern fist of revolution was done in black outline, and filled with silver. The symbol on my chest was raised above the other metal of the armor, and the silver was actually gleaming, raw vibranium. Sophia had been able to create a silvery-blue version of our symbol out of her force fields, and for Emma it was trivial to create her own version, as she could become _anything_ at all. I fed her a few slivers of the Vibromantium I had created, and as expected she was able to manifest her own impervious form based on it. Her power was such utter bullshit, I thought with a smirk.

After a little bit of giggling over our costumes, and a light snack, we decided to actually get out there and test our powers out in the real world. Like many Brockton Bay capes before us, we decided to head to the boat graveyard to practice; unlike any of them, we had an agenda. Using an extra-sensory ability to find a quiet, uninhabited place, I teleported us to an empty corner of the graveyard. We appeared in the hull of one of the ships that was damaged the worst, the three of us standing on the half-sunken hulk of a tanker ship. It was a sorry sight, covered in rust, and had torn itself asunder under the strain of its grounding in the bay and the low tides over the years. Conversing briefly, we decided to get to work. By design we decided not to make any efforts to hide ourselves; we were proud heroes, and if we wouldn't shy away from others if the Protectorate, or any other capes for that matter, decided to confront us.

After briefly going over our game plan for the graveyard, I tapped Emma twice, granting her the abilities that we would need to get this done using Gift, then copying them for myself and removing them from her. She couldn't been seen to be the Trump after all; that was my schtick. Sophie leapt into the air, and using a combination of an ultralight material of her own design, and a massive pair of wings, Emma joined her. Both of them did have basic flight, but they decided to use their signature powers to keep themselves aloft; better to be underestimated, after all. Sophia called a curtain like sheet of force into existence, and gesturing downward, used the incandescent, hyper sharp edge to quickly slice the enormous tanker into more manageable chunks.

Emma jumped into the water, and began to grow, until she was perhaps fifty feet tall, towering over us regular sized humans. Using her immense strength, she lifted gigantic chunks of the chopped up ship aloft, so that I could easily work on them. Using my new powers, I quickly and efficiently removed any of the oxidation present in the scrap metal, I seperated it into its constituent materials, then converted it into ingots of these purse substances. Bars of iron, carbon, nickel, aluminum, the rare bit of gold, as well as other materials practically poured forth as we worked. In only an hour, we had cleared perhaps a quarter of the boat graveyard, the bounty of our efforts sitting on an enormous force platform maintained by Sophie. I had stacked the bars so that they formed pyramids of each recycled substance, and by now several of them were larger than my house. The tiny pyramid of gold bars was barely more than knee-high to me, but it was still a huge amount of the precious metal. Who knew that such riches were hidden in the dingy depths of the boat graveyard?

Of course such an overt display of superpowers had attracted attention. By now, there was a huge flock of people observing our efforts, several of them with phones any camera out to record us and snap pictures of our salvage operation. My power sense informed me that three of the observers were parahumans, a powerful deductive reasoning Thinker, a boy who could put people and objects into a form of immutable stasis, and a grab-bag cape who had several minor powers including enhanced reflexes, a small pocket dimension, and minor pyrokinesis. Tattletale, Clockblocker, and Circus, I presumed, as the powers seemed to match.

The gawkers were nearly a half-mile away, but still the powers of the parahumans in the crowd burned bright. All three capes were in their civilian guises, as there weren't any costume wearers present that I could discern. I shamelessly destroyed all three of their shards, converting their powers into innate abilities and boosting them slightly, then copied them for myself. Tattletale flinched when I did this, though the other two didn't seem to notice. The poor girl blonde supervillain then sagged, and leaned over a railing, her body limp. Strangers near the teenage girl were asking if she was OK. Damn… I wonder if her Thinker power gave her some kind of feedback when I burst her shard? Frowning at my fuckup, I copied the strongest regeneration power that I presently had, and shot it to her using Power Manipulation, then burned a PM charge to increase her Thinker power by a large amount, and to eliminate any negative side effects. She popped right up, looking hale, healthy, and confused. Turning, Tattletale fled, faster than most people could run; it was a really, really good regeneration power.

'Note to self,' I thought, 'Be careful when destroying high-level Thinker shards.' The whole event had taken perhaps a minute, and due to my multitasking neither Sophie nor Emma had noticed a thing. I returned to work. It took another half an hour after that for the fuzz to show up. Riding some kind of tinkertech speed boat colored the same as his power armor, was Armsmaster, the Halbeard himself. With him were Miss Militia, and about half a squad of unpowered PRT mooks. Their faces were grim, heroes and PRT alike, and thanks to my insanely enhanced vision I could see the furtive way they clutched their weapons from where I worked. Armsmaster had two halberds slung across his back, and Miss Militia had an enormous rifle clutched in her arms, which looked like it could put a dent in an Endbringer. Following the boat closely, was the only flier in the local Protectorate, the up and coming hero Dauntless. Smirking, I copies all three new powers after rendering them shardless and boosting them by a good deal. I did it as quickly as I could, and none of them seemed to notice in the slightest. I did notice, however, that a tiny bit of tension had drained out of Armsmaster's face. 'Goodbye, little conflict balls.' I thought. 'Good riddance!'

Soon enough, the speedboat was near the location where we were working, perhaps twenty or thirty feet away. Dauntless was hovering in the air with no apparent effort, standing right beside the boat on nothing. The heroes and their backup seemed to be conversing, with gestures and slightly raised voices occasionally becoming known. My team and I had discussed what to do, but we were taking pains not to listen in on their conversation; that would be really rude, after all. We shot them the occasional curious glance, but continued to work. The piles of materials on Sophie's force platform grew as I broke ships down into their constituent pieces, adding to our bounty of scrap. Emma kept on lifting and carrying, and Sophie continues to slice and dice.

As my team was finishing up the current ship that we were working on, Dauntless flew over, stopping maybe ten feet from where I floated in the air. "Hello. My name is Dauntless, and I'm a hero with the Protectorate East-North-East. My superiors and I would like to have a word with you three if possible, so if you could pause your salvage efforts for a few minutes so we can do that I would really appreciate it." His romanesque helmet had the bottom of his nose on down uncovered, revealing a tentative smile on his face, which took any perceived sting out of his 'request'. He looked a bit uncomfortable, but that was only natural, I supposed. Meeting three unknown parahumans with obviously high-level powers was a risky situation. If we had the standard conflict balls in our heads that powers usually came standard with, then this could easily degenerate into a fight.

I smiled back at the gladiator styled cape, my own exposed mouth revealing my full-lipped grin, complete with pearly white teeth. "Sure." I said, my voice raised so that I could be heard from where I was hovering. "You can have your bosses and the PRT guys meet us on the scrapping platform to talk." I pointed to a large empty space next to the now enormous pyramids of recovered metals and other materials. I motioned for Emma and Sophie to follow, and slowly flew to the indicated spot. I was soon joined by So- no, _Eclipse_ , and a now normal sized _Chrysalis_. Soon enough, the speedboat docked with the platform which was now just above sea level. Armsmaster and Miss Militia hopped out of the boat and strode forward, followed by Dauntless and the head of the PRT guys. The other five stayed in the speedboat.

We met the PRT guys near a medium-sized pile of carbon bars, each of them formed into a crystalline lattice for maximum stability. Armsmaster was looking at the bars of diamond with an absolutely stupid expression on his face, and it was all I could do not to laugh. A minor technokinesis power that I had sold and copied for myself a few days ago gave me an impression that he was scanning the diamond bars with several different instruments. Miss Militia was acting the consummate professional, weapon held in both hands, now in the form of a combat shotgun with a wicked looking bayonet fixed to it. Dauntless was holding up the rear, his signature Arc Lance in hand. The PRT agent was warily looking at the three of us, a frown on his face. 'What a butthead,' I thought.

The head of the Protectorate ENE pulled himself away from his scanners, and stepped forward until he was a mere five feet from me; well within the range of his techno-halberd, but outside of most other close quarters hand-to-hand weapons, as well as striker powers. He took a few seconds to look us up and down, pausing briefly on as his scanners gave him weird readings for both of my teammates due to their powers. Finally, he settled on me, the apparent leader of our team, as I was standing in the middle and a few steps in front of my colleagues. I spared a glance at the crowd of people who had been watching us from the piers and shoreline earlier; they were being gently but firmly moved back by PRT agents, who seemed to be setting up a cordon. I frowned slightly, wondering what they were planning. It was probably just a precaution, but in my experience eliminating all of the witnesses before confronting someone was a shady thing to do.

Armsmaster spoke. "Good afternoon. I am Armsmaster, the head of the Protectorate East North East, and these are my colleagues Miss Militia, Dauntless, and PRT Lieutenant Faulkner. You are not currently in trouble, but I need to ask you some questions about yourselves and the salvage operation that you're running here. First, if you please, could you introduce yourselves? I haven't seen the three of you before, and you're not in the PRT's archives." he asked.

As he talked, I studied the power armored cape. He didn't seem angry, or worried; if anything, the government Tinker looked tired. The close-range biology sense that I had copied from Panacea and upgraded supported that assessment. It also told me that Armsmaster had so much caffeine and other (legal) stimulants in his body that he was bordering on damaging himself. I wondered what the hell he was doing out here in that state. Miss Militia didn't seem much better, though Dauntless was fairly well rested. The PRT agent was just slightly too far from me to get a good read on him with that particular powers.

"Sure thing, Armsmaster. We're a new group of independent heroes that just formed, and we've settled on Revolution for our group's name. I'm Transition, and with me are Chrysalis and Eclipse." I said, gesturing to each of my comrades in turn. "What else would you like to know?" I asked compliantly.

Armsmaster looked a little surprised that I had was being so forthcoming, but he didn't let it affect him overmuch; his tone and inflection was the same nearly hostile yet otherwise emotionless drone that he had started with. "Can you tell me what your powers are, and please provide me with the permits for this salvage operation?" he asked.

I grinned at him, and gave Miss Militia and the PRT guy reason to snap their eyes onto me as I wagged my finger at him chidingly. "Armsmaster, you should be well aware that in 2009 the Brockton Bay City Council passed a local ordinance allowing anyone to perform salvage operations which don't involve heavy equipment. They were hoping that it would eventually make a dent in the boat graveyard, but it really didn't amount to much… until now." I smiled sweetly at him. "I could give you the ordinance number if you like." I offered, my tone light.

He frowned, trading a glance with Miss Militia. She shrugged, her own expression blank. Her gaze stayed on me the whole time; chick was stone cold under pressure. "I'm aware of that ordinance, yes." he offered, his expression a little bit sullen. I rolled my eyes. 'Oh, come on!' I thought, 'I caught you in a dirty trick, and you're upset with _me_?'

Miss Militia stepped forward, taking over the questioning. 'Tag-team hero action!' I thought, still smiling. The protectorate heroine smiled back at me, her eyes crinkling slightly. It helped that I could see what her biology was doing from here. "Sorry about that Transition, we just wanted to make sure that you and your team were on the level. Would you three mind giving us a brief description of your powers? The PRT likes to get an idea of what any new capes in the area are capable of, especially our fellow heroes." She really was much better at talking to people than Armsmaster, I mused. "You aren't required to provide this information, but if you willingly share than it will allow us to better work with your team in the future, and to more easily coordinate with you during emergencies." she finished, her tone enquiring.

"Sure, that's fine." I replied. "I'm a Trump who can manifest and build up lots of different powers over time. Chrysalis is a changer that can transform into anything, and Eclipse is a shaker who can manipulate hard light in any way that she wants over a very wide area." I said, giving them the bare bones of our abilities. Hopefully that would be enough to let them know that we're very strong, without letting them know that we're so strong that any one of us could kick the entire Triumvirate ass.

Armsmaster appeared to perk up, and his gaze intensified. "You're telling the truth." he said. He sounded a bit taken aback. He and Miss Militia shared a look with each other, and his gaze settled on me. It felt heavier somehow. "Can you tell me how and when you got your powers?" he asked, his tone one of forced casualness. He glanced at each of us consideringly. Miss Militia looked at him oddly, a frown present.

'What the hell?' I wondered, 'He can't be serious!' I stiffened, as if mortally offended, and my face contorted with barely contained fury. "How _dare you!?_ " I hissed dangerously, my mind spinning, trying to understand. Capes just _didn't_ ask about trigger events, it wasn't _ever_ done amongst anyone who knew the score. 'What is his game, Armsmaster?' I wondered. Well, I had ways of finding out. My companions tensed as well, waiting to see what I would do.

I slipped Tattletale's power free from where I had been reigning it in, and it filled in all the gaps. He was trying to find out if we were more capes who had purchased powers. They had been turning up all over the place, and we had several signs that we might be such individuals. We were new, acting unusually stable, and we seemed to be unusually powerful and less limited compared to the average parahuman. I went from a vague intuitive understanding of the situation to having mastered it in about _two seconds_. Tattletale's power was amazing!

By now Emma and Sophie had gotten into the act, both of them easily following my lead. Both of them looked murderous, and Sophie was floating a few inches off of the ground, shaped force fields surrounding her hands. Emma had grown a spiked, lizard like tail, and it was swinging angrily back and forth behind her. "How did _you_ trigger, fucker!?" I asked, my tone filled with rage. "How about you tell _me_ all about the worst day of _your_ life?" I was nearly snarled. My costume's swirling color change effect dramatically sped up at my mental command, and I made sure the visible portion of my face had turned a bright red. My Tattlesense told me that if I didn't sell this charade then they might conceivably connect me to Grant. I had used Browbeat's copied self-biokinesis to make my words and appearance completely genuine, and it seemed to have worked flawlessly.

The PRT agent was visibly agitated, and his comrades in the boat looked like they were getting ready to charge out at us. He had his containment foam sprayer in his hands, though he wasn't yet pointing it at us… yet. Miss Militia was staring at me in shock by this point, visibly disturbed, and the female hero's power kept rapidly shifting between different varieties of assault rifles. Dauntless was glaring at Armsmaster, and my Tattlesense told me that he didn't have a clue why his boss just decided to tactlessly ask the worst question that it was possible to inquire about for most parahumans. I wielded my cloned auto-biokinesis like a maestro, appearing to stew in only partially contained fury.

Miss Militia stepped in front of her boss, who was standing stock still, his face a grimace. She made a plaintive gesture, as if to dismiss him, and seemed to be collecting her thoughts. Tattlesense said that she had been expecting him to say something much subtler, and she was both hideously embarrassed by, and upset with her commanding officer. The Tinker didn't appear to know quite what to do. My biology sense told me that his nerves were getting ready to fire, and that he was preparing to either quickly draw one of his halberds or to run away, though he didn't seem to be decided on which course to take. He was visibly controlling himself, forcing himself not to escalate the situation, though it wasn't easy for him. Apparently, he had been _completely sure_ that we were artificial capes who had purchased our powers, and discovering that we were not was complete surprise to him. He felt like he had lost control of the situation, and was struggling to find some way to regain his reign on events. He didn't want to fight, however, as he believed that it would look bad. Armsmaster also didn't like fighting females, or kids, and we were both; it made him uncomfortable emotionally, and he hated feeling like that. He- I switched off Tattletale's power for now, putting it back on the shelf. There _is_ such a thing as too much information…

Our little dance done, I turned around and flew into the air, Emma and Sophie following me. Sophie gestured to the gigantic piles of recovered resources, and an individual cubicle force field formed around each pyramid of scrap, following her into the sky. We rapidly ascended, then cut toward the bay, before increasing our speed enormously. I smirked when I was sure that the protectorate goons couldn't see me; that had been fun! I giggled, and soon my friends had joined me in laughter.

"Oh my god," said Emma, "The look on Armsy's face…" she said, breaking out into another round of giggles. "Miss Militia seemed pretty cool, though, and Dauntless was a total hottie." she said.

"Nah," I said, "Miss Militia was the hottie. I would totally bear those arms, if you know what I mean," I said, waggling my eyebrows at both of my friends as we darted around through the air. Sophie laughed so hard that she choked, turning red beneath her dark skin.

Emma nodded, "I get what you mean, she is a pretty good looking woman…" she said. "But I definitely like guys better." she said, sticking out her tongue.

Sophie got ahold of herself, and was glaring at me for making her laugh herself retarded. "Why did we act super angry at him, anyway?" she asked curiously. "And why did they act like it was totally called for?"

My smiled dropped a little. "It's considered taboo to ask about other capes' trigger events… Armsmaster basically asked us to describe the details of how we felt and what happened on the very worst day of our lives... The event that shattered us as human beings, and made us break badly enough that the universe thought we deserved insane, reality bending powers as a consolation prize just for surviving it. It's just... not... _done_. Ever." I stated firmly.

"Wow, Taylor." said Emma, her eyes wide. "I didn't realize that it was that bad…" she paused, before speeding forward to embrace me, her wonderful, curvy form pressing against me in the air. I smiled happily as my best friend gave me a hug, returning it with interest. 'Mmm…' I thought, my eyes glazing over as certain parts of her pressed against certain parts of me. I had to use biokinesis to prevent an embarrassing reaction from occurring. Doubly so, when Sophie joined in, making it a group hug. I nearly whimpered as I was pressed between my incredibly busty friends, my self-control strained to its max. It was almost a relief when the hug ended. Only almost, though.

 **.** **.** **.**

The next day found Revolution back at work in the boat graveyard, and this time we weren't disturbed by the Protectorate, though Aegis and Kid Win waved at us when they flew by, evidently on patrol in the area. I figured the two wards might be nearby to keep an eye on us, as they were two of the local Protectorate's few flyers… besides many of the new people who I had empowered, that is. Some kind of flight, or an ability that could fake it, had been the most requested power, period. After flying for the first time a few months ago, I knew why; flying through the air under your own power was one of the most freeing sensations in existence. I loved it, and if my only power had been flight I think I would have been happy.

There were _a lot more_ onlookers, than there had been the day before. Hundreds of people watched us work from the beach and the nearby piers, some of them eating picnic lunches as they did so, many of them taking pictures. Off in the distance, I could even see some people watching us from the Boardwalk using binoculars and telescopes. I picked up copies of a few more capes powers, besides those of the two Wards, as evidently there were a group of Empire 88 parahumans in their civvies watching us. I copied the powers of Alabaster, Rune, Othala (squee!) and Victor. I would need to play with these powers a whole bunch later, especially Othala's… I wanted to try combining it with my jailbroken copy of her power to see if that might be able to improve it somehow.

I had an idea that we wouldn't be seeing any of those I'd newly empowered out on patrol for a while, perhaps barring emergencies. Maybe not at all, at least in the Bay. It's possible that the PRT might transfer all of the newbies to different locations if they were seriously worried about Grant, or if they thought he might be able to exert some kind of Master effect over them. If the PRT did something stupid like putting the new capes under long term Master/Stranger quarantine, or worse, I would come forward in my Grant costume and play ball with them... At least to the extent of answering questions and proving that my process of empowering was permanent and harmless. I had no desire to see the people who were ostensibly supposed to be the "good guys" hurting innocent people who had only wanted to do some good.

Coming forward to the PRT was a last resort, though; I would only do that if I absolutely had to. It would be much more likely that I would decide to break my former customers out of confinement and blow the whistle on the whole thing if I found out they were being mistreated. It would mean revealing myself to the world at large, but it wasn't like I couldn't just retire Grant afterward, maybe fake "his" death or something. I doubted that anyone short of Zion, Glaistig Uaine, or maybe Eidolon (if he happened to stumble upon the right three powers) could seriously challenge me.

With PM I should be able to shut any power down cold, or even yank it out of an attacker permanently. I hadn't yet completely taken away "natural" powers from anyone, just the ones I had created and given out, but the idea of doing so felt as easy and instinctive as any other use of my most-used ability. My main worry was that I had no clue how well, or how quickly power manipulation would work on those with multiple powers, which is why I was wary of the above three that I mentioned... Zion most of all. Conceivably it might take me a million years to remove all of the alien's various abilities, or it might take one second. Taking that many powers might cause me to explode, or the entity to go insane and blow up the planet. I wasn't in a hurry to fight him, even if I knew that I would have to… eventually.

I thought these shitty, depressing thoughts as we worked, occasionally chatting with my friends about inconsequential things. Even though we had cleaned up over half of the ship graveyard yesterday in only a few hours, it took another four hours for us to completely finish, as we had been focused on processing the biggest and most intact ships first the day before. There were several ships remaining that had nearly disintegrated, and I had to combine the telekinesis that I'd given to Greg with Rune's power, and then boost it with PM, before I could handle pulling them all off of the sea floor without further breaking the rusty, nearly destroyed ship parts into a millions of pieces.

Eclipse and Chrysalis helped with this tedious pick up too, of course. Sophie made a giant net out of forcefield ropes, and dredged the bottom of the bay for ship chunks, and Emma transformed into a twenty-five foot tall mermaid, and dived down to gather the larger pieces. Cleaning up the smallest pieces actually took the longest, eating up two whole hours. When we were finished, we floated near the shore and waved to the people gathered there, which now included reports and cameramen for two different news stations. We received a wave of applause, and the three of us linked hands did an aerial bow, which resulted in yet more adulation from our admirers. I subtly crafted a bunch of little figurines of us out of some of the plastic we had gathered that day, and used my overpowered TK to gift a set of these little action figures to each person in attendance. For fun, I crafted the action figures that went to the E88 parahumans in the crowd so they were scowling and making obscene gestures. This little prank made Rune quite upset, as evidenced by her dropping and stomping on our scowling likenesses.

The children in the audience went crazy at my gift, and Sophie, Emma, and I were lapping up the attention. My best friends were doing tricks in the air while smiling and waving at people. Emma was even blowing some of the cute teenage boys in the audience kisses, much to their enjoyment. Using the communicators that I had designed for us that morning, I muttered to my team that it was probably time to leave, as Alabaster was scowling down at the little doll which showed Eclipse sneering and flipping him off, and Othala was looking unhappily at the little plastic me she was holding, which had a stern expression, one hand on it's hip, and the other raised with its forefinger out in a tough, scolding gesture… much like a mother chastising her child for being naughty. A tear actually came running down one of her eyes, much to my shock, and she hung her head as if defeated. Victor, who was behind her grabbed her arm roughly when he noticed what she was doing, and as I watched, he squeezed her arm roughly, hard enough to leave bruises while muttering something angry in her ear. The nazi healer suppressed a cry, biting her lip roughly.

A red fog settled over my mind, and I had to forcibly restrain myself from launching a heat beam through the skill thief's skull. I *did* rip out his parahuman power, taking all of his stolen skills with it for myself. Victor's hand unclenched itself from Othala's arm, as he began to shudder, and the people in the group around him parted as he fell to the ground, his mouth frothing as he convulsed. My eyes went wide as I watched the former parahuman shake and flop about like he was being electrocuted, a thick pink foam building up around over his lips as he shuddered.

I teleported beside the downed parahuman, and with a shout of "I'm a healer, make way!" the crowd parted around me. Othala looked torn between running and trying to help her compatriot, her face a mask of unspoken horror at this turn of events. A large, hand-shaped bruise was starting to form on her arm, and from this distance that her conservative clothes held a whole host of other minor injuries… all from previous abuse. I put a hand on Victor to still him, and took a peak with my biology sense. In clinical terms, his brain was fucked. It was riddled with lacunae, incredibly tiny pieces of grey matter just _gone_ from all areas of his brain, with no rhyme or reason… and it was killing him. "Something's wrong with his brain," I muttered to Othala softly enough that she was the only one who heard me. She gasped, her hand rising to cover her mouth, an expression of horror on her face.

I must have done this with PM, when I took his power. Maybe making his power shardless had somehow translated his stored skills into actual brain space, instead of stored in the shard? And when I took his skills, it might must have mimicked his own power's effects on those he stole his skills from in the past, inflicting thousands of tiny incidents of brain damage to take place. I certainly hadn't intended to do this, but if this is what happened in miniature to everyone he stole skills from in the past, then I can't say he deserved it. I could certainly heal the damage, or even give the guy his skills back, but I wasn't sure if I should. 'But, wait…' I thought, as information from Biokinesis flooded my mind, 'If I healed Victor's brain damage, then the areas of missing brain matter would be filled in with empty neurons, which wouldn't contain any information…'

Victor would still be able to live and have his memories intact, he just wouldn't be able to call on any of the skills that he had stolen in the past. Deciding that this was justice, and not to mention what I had originally intended to happen to him, I quickly healed the former parahuman's brain. I covertly removed the coronas pollentia and gemma while I was at it… Without the entity's hardpoints there shouldn't be any new triggers for this caucasian bad boy. I also healed up the tongue he had bitten through, as well as the dislocated shoulder he had from falling on it. I rounded out the procedure by fixing several spots of muscle damage that the former cape's seizing had caused.

When I removed my hand, Victor was completely healthy, and fast asleep. I smiled at Othala, who looked relieved that her abuser and significant other was going to be alright. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her, as she seemed a decent sort that was trapped in a bad situation. I had no clue if she actually share the racist ideals that the rest of the organization she belonged to espoused, but even if she did she didn't deserve to by physically abused by her lover; no one deserved that. I really wanted to help her out, but I knew from past experience that abused women sometimes needed something terrible to happen to get them to leave their abuser, to shock them out of their complacency and denial. Not always, but often. Still, it wouldn't hurt to try.

I looked Othala-I really needed to learn her actual name-in the eyes "Hello miss. My name is Transition, and I'm an independant hero. I've healed this man's injuries for the most part, and he's no longer in immediate danger, but I need to transport him to the hospital so that a doctor can check him over and make sure that he'll be alright. Would you like to accompany us there?" She gave me a hesitant nod, her eyes watery, before looking down at the stern figurine of my superhero persona that was still clutched in her hand.

"Yes, please." she whispered. She spared a glance back to the closest of her compatriots in the crowd, Alabaster, whose gaze was trying to bore a hole through Othala's skull. She lightly shuddered. "That would be great…" she finished lamely. I levitated Victor with a thought as I rose a few inches in the air, before extending my hand to Othala. She lightly brushed my fingers, and that was enough. I transferred the same standard "easy assisted flight" power to her that all of the members of Revolution used, and she gasped as she rose up into the air under her own power, as the ability instructed her brain in how to intuitively use it. The bruised super villainess let an enormous grin overtake her as she was able to kick off of the ground, and the crowd gasped. I kept one hand outstretched in her direction, twitching it slightly, as if controlling her ascent myself; I definitely didn't want anyone in the crowd to know that I could grant powers to others, even temporarily.

Two women and an unconscious man rose into the air while the crowd whooped their approval, the three of us meeting Chrysalis and Eclipse in the air before streaking off toward Brockton Bay general. "We're escorting these two to the hospital," I whispered to my teammates via my integrated comset, "They're Victor and Othala in civilian guise." This comment caused my besties to tense, Sophie grumbling something unpleasant under her breath. "It's OK… I permanently depowered Victor, which somehow caused him to have a seizure, but I stabilized him." Emma shot me a questioning look over her shoulder, as her enormous feathered wings propelled her through the air. She was actually using her flight power, the wings were just for show. What a cheater.

"I saw him hurting Othala, and flipped out." I explained as we soared through the sky. Thankfully, I was far enough from the newly flight capable villainess that she couldn't hear my softly spoken words. "Taking all of the skills he had stolen from others over the years shredded his brain for some reason, leaving him all fucked up. I fixed the damage, and he's going to live. I fed Othala some bullshit about needed to take him to the hospital for follow up so that I could get her away from the other E88 goons that were there with her, so that we could talk." I explained.

Sophie responded. "What-why do you want to talk to a villain, especially one with a power like yours, only worse?" she asked.

"She's been extensively abused, both physically and sexually, according to one of my powers. Emotionally, too, probably. Victor's supposed to be her husband or boyfriend, or something, but I don't think it's consensual… Either that, or he's just a fucker who likes to beat women." I stated grimly. Emma had gasped as I explained things, and was eyeing the still joyful looking Othala as she played around with her new flight ability as we grew nearer to our destination. When we were in view of the hospital, I began descending toward the large park across the street from the building. My companions, as well as Victor's limp form, followed me down.

We landed in a deserted corner of the large park, amidst a copse of walnut trees. At my murmured direction, Sophie and Emma took possession of Victor, and began heading to the emergency room entrance that was visible in the distance. Othala made to follow, but a softly placed hand on her shoulder made her first flinch instinctively, then pause. She turned to look at me, her face enquiring. "Can I please have a word with you, for just a moment? My companions will get your… significant other… to the emergency room safely, I promise. " I said gently, using several low-level Thinker powers to enhance my charisma and the form and pace my voice to maximize the chance that she would listen to me. It wasn't a master power… just a quick way to make sure that she wouldn't dismiss me out of hand. It worked.

"Uh, sure." she said nervously, her eyes darting to Victor's retreating form, and then back to me. I quickly tapped my chest, anchoring a perception filter to me that would allow us to speak with no possibility of anyone observing us or listening in on our conversation. I sighed; this was going to _suck_ , I could feel it.

I waved my hands around nonsensically"OK, I made it so that no one can see us, or listen in. First of all, I promise that I mean you no harm, and that nothing we discuss here will make it's way to anyone else besides the two of us." I stated, my tone of voice firm, yet laced with just the right amount of compassion. Othala's eyes were wide now, and she was trembling a little. "I'm sorry, but due to my powers I have inadvertently invaded your privacy to a degree. I'm have a Trump power that is capable of detecting parahumans and getting information on their powers when they are in close proximity to myself."

Othala inhaled quickly. My biosense told me that her heart rate was becoming elevated and that her body was beginning to produce fight or flight hormones. "I know that you are the cape known as Othala. Again, I'm sorry for the invasion of privacy. I also know that the man I treated is Victor. I'm telling you this because I want to help you. I saw him hurting you, and _no one_ deserves that. I can also tell that this wasn't an isolated incident. I want to offer you a way out if you want it, as well as my personal protection if need be, as well as that of my teammates. I'm willing to help you in any way that you need, including finding you a place to stay, changing your appearance if you want to disappear, even getting you out of the city, or state, or country if you think that's best."

The young woman was opening crying now, her head bowed. 'She's ashamed,' my powers told me. I placed my hand on her shoulder lightly, squeezing it gently before continuing. "My resources are vast, and I am glad to help you in any way you feel comfortable with. I can't stand to see anyone being hurt like that, and now that I have powers I'm more than happy to be able to do something about it." I smiled gently at her, and she cried all the harder for it. I quietly wrapped my arms around the crying woman, and slowly led her to a wooden bench. I kept one arm around Othala as she sobbed quietly into my side for what felt like hours, but was in reality only a minute or two. I felt really bad for her, and on some level I was embarrassed to see her in such a state.

Slowly, the blonde cape pulled herself together. I hadn't really noticed before, but remembering Worm, wasn't Othala supposed to have one eye missing? This one didn't, for some reason. I seemed to remember that she wasn't an abused mess in canon… I had no idea what butterflies had caused these changes. I reached into one of the pockets on my undersuit, and conjured a handkerchief. I handed it to Othala, who gave me a quiet 'Thank you' before drying her eyes.

Othala locked her red, puffy eyes on mine, and spoke. "I should be furious at you for unmasking me, but you're obviously young and new to the game, and I understand that you're just trying to help… and I actually believe you when you say that my identity's safe, and that's not something I ever thought I would be saying to a hero." She chuckled weakly, then her face stilled. "To answer your question simply; Yes." She licked her dry lips. "Yes, I want out of the Empire 88. Yes, I never want to see those bastards Kaiser and Victor again as long as I live. Yes, I want out of the state… but I don't think you understand the kind of resources that the Empire can bring to bear. They have Thinkers on retainer, both precogs and even more esoteric types. They have some many different capes that finding me wouldn't even pose a challenge to them… and if Kaiser picks up a phone, he can have a dozen more capes on loan from the Gesellschaft any time he wants. Getting out is _impossible_." The young woman sounded completely defeated.

I smiled warmly at her. "It's really not." I said gently. "You see… you didn't ask what my power is." I told her conspiratorily.

She looked at me oddly, cocking her head to the side a bit, as if trying to untangle a particularly odd riddle. "You think that you can take on the entire Empire?" she asked me, her voice incredulous. "What _is_ your power, anyway? Something a little like mine, I imagine, but without a manton limit, since you gave me flight…?" she mused.

"Sort of," I said. "I'm a Trump, yes, and you're right to describe my power as a little like yours. Basically, I can give myself and others powers, but instead of having a small, predefined list, I can give myself and anyone else any power at all that I want." She looked at me, aghast, her mouth open in shock. "And they're permanent, unless I choose otherwise." I finished with a wink.

"You mean…" Othala said, her mouth opening and closing without any sound emerging, before she mastered herself. "You mean, I'll _always_ be able to fly from now on?" asked the Empire cape. Her tone was one of awe, as if she had been given the greatest gift in the world. "I can give other people powers, but I've never really had _real_ superpowers before, you know, for _myself_ …" she trailed off, a smile on her face.

"Yeah, the flight is permanent." I said smugly with another grin.

"Holy shit!" she cried, "Depending on what kinds of limitations your power has, you might be stronger than Eidolon!" she whispered, her face now showing a little hope. "Can you give people Stranger powers? If I could hide, or slip away when they track me down then I might even be able to stay in the city…" she mused.

"How about this?" I asked. "I can also _tweak_ powers a little bit…" I gave her a contemplative look. My tattlesense was telling me that she was acting completely genuine, and that she was feeling hopeful that she might not have to return to her captors again. I finished my thought out loud. "I might be able to alter your actual ability to work on yourself, as well as on others. Would you like that?" I asked her.

"Yes, please! That would be _amazing!_ " cried Othala, her voice and mannerisms temporarily transformed into those of a much younger girl. She held out her hand expectantly, outstretched fingers trembling slightly. I lightly took her hand, focusing Power Manipulation on her ability. Hmm… she was able to imbue others with several temporary powers: regeneration, pyrokinesis, invincibility, super speed, super strength, and some kind of odd gravity altering power which allowed for flight. There was something else, there, though, which was buried under the surface. I dug into the guts of Othala's power eagerly, trying to divine its secrets.

Looking at the hidden bit of her power, I found a whole other list of possible abilities that she could grant, but they were "greyed out" for lack of a better way of describing it, totally inaccessible to her. I figured that these hidden powers might have been alternate choices that her shard could have allowed her to gift to others, but didn't for some reason. I uncovered an additional six choices, matching the number of the other Trump's accessible abilities. I saw aerokinesis, force fields, short-range omniscience, invisibility, line-of-sight teleportation, and a weak form of electrokinesis. Very interesting… I smirked. I chipped away at the lock on these abilities with Power Manipulation, partially freeing them from their prison, but it was no use… there just wasn't enough power to work with inherent in her ability, and I had already boosted it to it's max when I made it shardless.

I sighed; I was going to have to use a PM charge. I pushed a charge into her power, and the barest, smallest percentage of the power was enough to completely unlock all six of the hidden abilities in the shardless version of Othala's power. I used the rest of the charge to strip off the last vestiges of the "Manton limit" on her ability, allowing her to gift herself with powers whenever she wanted to. Over half of the potential of the charge was still left, so I spent it modifying the scope of her power, letting her keep any three of her abilities at a time permanently active for herself, and letting her hot-swap them whenever she wanted to. That ate the rest of the charge, and I wasn't about to spend another one on her until I knew the abused villain a bit better.

It had only taken a few moments to upgrade Othala's power in the real world, but it had felt like quite a bit longer for me. I found that I had closed my eyes while I worked, which was becoming a bit of an annoying habit of mine; I resolved to avoid doing that in the future, especially while in a public place. I looked over Othala, who had a dumbstruck expression on her face, her green eyes comically wide. "Oh my God." she whispered softly, her voice barely audible to standard human ears. "Oh, my God!" she cried, jumping up. "You did it, Revolution! I can _feel_ new powers available, and I can use them on myself now! Holy crap…" she was smiling and pacing back and forth wildly. As I watched with biokinesis, her bruises started to face, and old bone breaks and poorly healed, er, internal injuries started to heal up. Her skin, unnaturally pale from being indoors too often, suddenly transformed into a much healthier tone.

She turned to me, looking much healthier now, and her face was a mask of poorly restrained joy. I saw the blonde _blur_ , and with a high pitched "Squee!" of delight, I suddenly had my arms full of a very affectionate girl. She was crying and laughing at the same time, and while she wasn't as stacked as either of my besties, Othala was going OK for herself. She hugged me tightly, muttering "Thank you, thank you!" over and over again. I wrapped an arm around her and patted her back, resisting the urge to move move it any lower. The embrace was _very_ nice. Before I could prevent it, a very embarrassing reaction took place, startling the cape who was embracing me when 'it' poked her in the stomach. Her body stiffened, and with an odd expression on her face, Othala slowed pulled herself from my arms.

She looked me in the face, her large, green eyes wide, before glancing down at my lap, and then back up to my visor covered eyes a few times. She had a contemplative look on her face. "Woah," she said, giving me a twice over, stopping to stare at my very feminine curves, and the very _unfeminine_ reaction that her flying tackle hug, and the subsequent prolonged contact with her had caused. "Are you... " she started, evidently not quite sure how to phrase her question. "I mean, you're not a… or are you, a, uh…?" she asked, her lack of eloquence as vast as Zion's true body. "You're very beautiful." she finally finished, her face now glowing nearly as red as my own.

The pretty blonde cape smiled at me shyly now, her eyes failing to meet my own. "Thank you for upgrading my power." she said, "I _really_ appreciate it." She appeared tense for some reason. I hoped that my uniqueness hadn't startled her; I still hadn't given her the Stranger power that she was going to need to successfully hide from the Empire 88 Thinkers that she had mentioned. "Umm…" she said, still refusing to look me in the eyes, "Are we still hidden from sight?" asked the blonde girl. I guess she wasn't going to run off, which was a relief. That would have been really awkward.

"Yeah, my perception filter will stay up until I release it." I informed her, wondering why she was asking about that. She smirked at my answer, before once more walking toward, me, her hips wiggling back and forth as she moved.

"Well…" she said, her voice thick, "Let's not take it down just yet, OK?" she asked, a sudden glint in her eye. I was still sitting on the bench, and she seemed to be _very_ close to me now for some reason.

"Um, OK." I said, my voice tight. I couldn't take my eyes off of the blonde Trump, who was now sporting a truly wicked expression. I nearly swooned as she knelt down in front of me, her hands reaching for my lap. Realizing that this was actually happening to me, in _real life_ , my face broke out into a enormous grin. Damn my teenage hormones; I wasn't acting suave in the slightest. My new friend didn't seem to care, thankfully.

 **.** **.** **.**

The smile didn't leave my face for the whole rest of the day. I contacted my team during a lull in my "conversation" with Othala, letting them know that I would meet up with them tomorrow. It turned out that the former Empire cape was _very, very_ grateful for the things I had done for her, and she definitely was not afraid to show it. We both enjoyed our afternoon together very much. Multiple times, even... After a very fun time in the park, my new friend even agreed to join the team... provided that she could work directly under me. I suspected that when she asked that it was an innuendo, but I agreed nonetheless.

I went to bed that night very satisfied in my decision to help Jill-Othala, that was-earlier that morning. Of course, Emma teased me mercilessly when my two best friends found out what we had been up to, and for some reason Sophie seemed to be really upset with me… she didn't talk to me at all the next day. I thought that it might be because I had hooked up with someone from a gang that practiced racism, her being black and all, but when I asked her about it she made a rude sound and called me an idiot. I had no clue what was going on _there_ , as despite being one, sort of, I still didn't really understand girls. I resolved to find out what was bugging my mocha skinned friend.

We took the next day off so that we could get Jill's abilities up to snuff. Hesitantly, as she still seemed a bit miffed, I asked Sophie to meet with me that night alone so that we could talk. I must have done something right, because she seemed much less upset with me, and even gave me a few hugs over the course of our training session. I was still really worried, though, as Sophie was incredibly important to me, being one of my best friends and all, and I definitely didn't want to lose her. I resolved to work hard to find out what was wrong, and to make sure that we got things straight between us when we met later, as I didn't want our friendship to get fucked up.

I would need to find somewhere quiet to talk to her, and probably getting dinner would be a good idea, as discussing things while eating helped make it more casual. It also gave us something to do with our hands and mouths in case the conversation got awkward. It must have been a good idea, because when I explained my thoughts to Sophie and then told her that I was taking her to a swanky French restaurant called Chez Fromage on the boardwalk she seemed really happy about it. She seemed even happier when I told her that we could go back to my workshop to talk some more after we had dinner, if she would like.

I'm so smart sometimes that I even impress myself, though I had no idea that eating and visiting my workshop again would mean that much to her. I really liked Sophie, and I resolved to be the best friend possible to her. 'We will definitely work out any problems between us later tonight,' I promised myself, 'I won't leave her side until she's completely satisfied with the status of our friendship!' I felt resolve fill me, and I knew deep down inside that if the teenaged track star cared about me even half as much as I cared about her, then everything would be just fine.


	7. Chapter 5

**Being Taylor is** _ **a**_ _**Thing**_

 **Chapter 5 - Being Taylor is Interesting**

I woke up on Sunday morning feeling better and more clearheaded than I had since I'd first come to the crazy grimderp dimension that was Earth Bet. Yesterday had been a revelation, proof that even though I'd been forced to be Taylor, that it wasn't the curse I'd thought it to be. After my date with Sophie, I'd come home and swapped places with the permanent clone I constantly had active, wanting to feel the comforting presence of my mother. No longer was she just 'Annette' in my mind; I was finally comfortable referring to her a 'mom', and thinking… even _feeling_ that she was my mother deep in the core of my being.

Mom and I had proceeded to spend a perfectly normal evening together, watching movies and talking about our lives. It helped that my clone passed its memories to me before it teleported off to Tinker, back at my lab… and to clean up. Sophie had been a _very_ enthusiastic girl when I brought her back there after our date. I almost never ran my clone using the hive-mind consciousness that my mom used. For me, it felt bizarre to be doing something in one body while the other one did something completely different. I knew that I could make that part of my clone power work instinctively with a little effort and _maybe_ a PM charge, but for some reason I didn't really want to… Life was _special_ with only one body, and I wasn't in a hurry to trade away my humanity for a little more power; _that_ process was already proceeding apace as it was, even without things like becoming a hive mind to speed the process along.

When I went to bed last night I was finally in a good enough head space to meditate. I'd been _fucking terrified_ to contemplate my own existence so deeply before today, due to the fact that I'd basically been two _somewhat_ connected minds trapped in a single brain. By embracing Taylor's friends and family, likes and desires, needs and wants, I had _finally_ accomplished what no amount of brute forcing could. The teenage girl's mind had _finally_ merged with my own to the point that we were less 'me' and 'her'... and more 'us'. Oh, ' _I_ ' was still the dominant personality, if simply by virtue of my more numerous life experiences and my clearly defined goals… but I _definitely_ wasn't the fucked-up mess of a person I'd been a week ago.

I'd finally let go of the disastrous 'First Power', after I'd made the horrible realization that it was the cause of most of my mental problems. It had been the very first power I'd created in the first second on my arrival in this universe. My terrified, panicked mind had rebelled at being forced to merge with Taylor's, and I had instinctively activated my greatest power, burning _five_ PM charges to create an ability that would insure the sanctity of my own mind. I had been too late, of course; all First Power could do was halt the progression of our mental merger, which as it turned out, had _NOT_ been good for my mind. Stopping the merger before it was complete had transformed me mentally, my normally stable mind becoming a neurotic wreck. I'd started avoiding everything to do with Taylor's life, keeping away from her mother and friends, and always, _always_ , shunning anything that might possibly cause the merger to start back up.

It hadn't worked. Our two minds had always been meant to become one, and by interfering with the process I'd nearly eradicated both of our souls. I had been left so damaged mentally by my rash action that I'd needed a superhuman ability that the PRT would have rated as level 10-12, just to _survive_. 'First Power' had done _much_ more than just causing me to forget bad memories and stabilizing me when the two essences inside of my body struggled to unite into a single being. It had acted as a potent mental and spiritual regeneration power, constantly repairing the torn, ragged edges of both Taylor's and my souls, fixing the massive amounts of damage that they accrued each day by remaining only partially bonded. It had also been a potent _physical_ regeneration power, repairing brain tissues that should have failed due to the consciousness within it being at odds, First Power had kept my body from experiencing the strokes, heart attacks, and _spontaneous death_ which were all probable consequences of two spirits fighting within one brain.

By embracing everything that Taylor cared about, everything that she loved, I'd bypassed all of the roadblocks that I'd thrown up in my ignorance. Our personalities had _finally_ come together to the degree that that the full measure of my sanity had briefly been restored to me. I had been blessedly sane _just long enough_ that I had been able to recognize that 'First Power' was doing me _far_ more harm than good. I'd used Power Manipulation to modify the ill conceived power, modifying it until it would not only provide me with a god-like degree of spiritual, mental, and physical regeneration, but would also auto-resurrect me from the dead if I was somehow killed. I'd had to add another PM charge to do all of that, but it was more than worth it. Once I'd fixed my massive, nearly deadly fuckup, I felt the world snap into place. Afterward my mind began working orders of magnitude better than it had just a moment before, giving me new insight into my life as Taylor Hebert.

I was _aghast_ at some of my previous actions, and merely embarrassed at others. I'd been acting like an overly horny, half-crazed _child_. I took offense at that. I normally behaved like an overly horny, half-crazed _adult_! What a difference a little bit of sanity makes… I'd realized just how badly I had taunted the PRT with my little stand at the Lord's Market Bizarre… how much they probably wanted me in their employee. I could not _believe_ that the broken, fucked up version of me had been content to simply let the PRT run roughshod over the town looking for her when she could have stopped it all with another clone and a few new powers. I decided to rectify _that_ little oversight tomorrow… Talking with the PRT would do more harm than good, and in the worst case scenario, I would simply join them using a clone.

I was also a concerned about my tryst with Othala... _Jill_... and my promise to protect her and help the blonde woman make a better life for herself. I'd spent four PM charges weeks ago to create a basic telepathy/empathy power, and I'd used it on Jill during our meeting in the park before I'd let anything physical happen between the two of us. Even half-deranged and with my soul fraying, I'd still been careful to make sure that the woman I'd rescued had been capable of fully consenting. I'd been fearful at the time that she'd been offering me sex as a way of soliciting my protection, or out of some misguided thought that she had to 'pay me back' for saving her… I had been both surprised and extremely gratified to learn that Jill simply had a huge kink for well-hung futanari, as well as a genuine love for sex. It turned out that Jill was a _very_ horny girl, and that her sexual needs were not being taken care of by her ex-boyfriend.

A big part of why Victor beat her was because the man was impotent. The skill thief tended to get moody when he couldn't get his tiny three inch penis up to fuck his incredibly lusty girlfriend. He dealt with this humiliation by hurting her, both with his fists and his words. Jill explained to me that she thought Victor's abuse was his way of making himself feel like a man again in the face of his failure to perform. Personally, I found the whole thing as sad as it was pathetic, and reprehensible besides. The worst part of the whole thing, for Victor, was that it _had_ to be a purely psychological problem; If it had been physical, then Jill could have cured him with a touch. He'd often accused her of not healing him correctly, telling her that her power was defective, or that she wasn't sexy enough to make him get hard… all lies, designed to make his impotence _her_ fault instead of his.

This incredibly toxic relationship would still have been bad if the the two parahumans were in love, or if Jill had actually been with Victor because she wanted to… but neither of those things were true. She had been a prisoner in her own home, only allowed to go outside if she was escorted by at least one parahuman from the Empire 88. I was horrified to learn that she had been placed in this situation by her own family. Jill's parents came from a wealthy, conservative German family that had close ties with several neo-nazi organizations like the Gesellschaft and the Empire. Her parents had traded Jill away to the Empire 88 like a piece of livestock when they had discovered that she had incredibly valuable powers… powers that gave her exactly _zero_ offensive capability when she was by herself. The greedy couple had received some money from the deal, and more importantly a great deal of favor from the racist organizations that they identified with. They had set up the entire thing like an arranged marriage, with Jill being moved in with Victor around six months ago, on course to marry him in a year when she turned twenty-one.

Jill had not been consulted about _any_ of these decisions. She was one of the most powerful Trumps on the eastern seaboard, and she had effectively had _no control_ over her life. Until I rescued her, the pretty young woman had been a _slave_ , her only choice whether to do what her parents, the Empire, and Victor told her to… or to suffer the consequences that disobedience brought. Her story had sickened me, to the point that I was strongly considering summarily executing every member of the Empire that I came across from here on out. The worst part of the whole thing was that Jill was an _extremely_ sweet girl, someone who was both genuinely nice and very easy to get along with. She had a beautiful soul, and _even after_ everything she had been through, she didn't harbor any hatred for the people who had wronged her. The beautiful blonde had told me that she just wanted to move on with her life, and to never see any of them again.

If the Empire had made even a modest effort to treat her fairly, if Victor had been even a half-decent human being, then the kind, accommodating young woman would probably have decided to make the best of her situation, and tried to get along with her captors. If they treated her more kindly, than Jill may have eventually internalized the Empire's racist philosophy, and actually grown to love Victor, instead of feeling pity and disgust for him like she did now.

Instead of having a willing ally in Othala, her erstwhile captors had alienated her, causing her to make the decision to desert them as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Kaiser and Victor had reveled in their ability to control such a powerful parahuman, _delighting_ in their capacity to imprison Jill and and force the young woman to act exactly how they liked. Their idiotic cruelty had bitten them in the ass. Now that Jill could use her abilities on herself directly, she had become incredibly strong and versatile. The sexy young woman was more than a match for any two capes that the Empire could bring to the table, and I would be surprised if there were any _three_ that should couldn't fight to a draw. At any given moment, Jill could equip herself with three abilities from her pool of superpowers, as well as temporarily sharing her powers with dozens of people at a time. She was a heavy hitter _and_ a force multiplier all in one, a parahuman strong enough to rival Alexandria or Legend… and _maybe_ even Eidolon. And now… _Now_ , she was _mine_.

Like I said earlier, Jill was an incredibly sweet girl. After my date with Sophie yesterday evening, I had gone to to check up on the ex-Empire Trump in the hidden safehouse that I'd commandeered for her use. It turned out that despite everything, Jill still wanted to remain in Brockton Bay, and that she had always longed to become a hero. After making sure that she was serious using my telepathy power, I'd gladly welcomed her to the team… contingent, of course, upon the agreement of my two best friends. I was a little worried that Sophie would object to Jill's inclusion, but not _terribly_ worried. I'd done a very thorough job of making sure that the beautiful track star was _eminently_ satisfied with our 'conversation' last night, hopefully dispelling any doubts that she had about how much I cared about her… How much I _loved_ her.

And I _do_ love her, I realized; now that I was firing on all cylinders, I could scarcely imagine a future without both Emma and Sophie by my side. They were my best friends, my anchors to reality in this crazy, screwed up death world. I know that they both felt the same way about _me_ , as well, thanks to the empathetic sense that I had activated in their presence a few times over the course of the last few days. It was a little disconcerting that I was starting to fall for Sophie romantically, at the same time that I was… well, not _dating_ Jill, but getting to know her intimately and having some pretty amazing sex with the gorgeous blonde.

I had made no secret of the fact that Jill and I had fucked in the park two days ago when I told Emma and Sophie what happened afterward. Sophie had _still_ shared her gorgeous body with me when we went back to my lab after dinner yesterday evening… rather _enthusiastically_ , I might add. The sexy track star hadn't made any demands of me afterward; she hadn't asked me to go steady with her, or not to date other people. We hadn't even made another date, outside of a team meeting that was planned for later this morning. Acting on instinct last night, I'd actually told Sophie that I loved her, a sentiment that she had enthusiastically returned, much to my joy. It was all very strange, surreal, though extremely gratifying. Last night had been, bar none, the best night that I had spent here in Earth Bet.

Jill didn't seem to mind my relationship with Sophie either. I don't quite know _what_ we had together, yet, but whenever I touched or kissed Jill, it felt so right that I can hardly describe it. I didn't loved her like I did Sophie, at least not yet, but I could easily see myself falling for the twenty year old blonde woman just as hard as I was for my dark skinned bestie. Whether I was dating the both of them now, or they both just wanted our relationship to remain casual, or if they expected me to choose between them at some point, I had no idea. I would need to talk to them both about this at some point, and I knew that the sooner I did so, the better. I cared for the both of them and respected them _far_ too much to leave things up in the air.

I didn't even want to _think_ about the powerful, aching feeling I felt in my heart every time I laid eyes on Emma. We had been best friends since birth, and the she had blossomed into a girl of such staggering beauty that I could scarcely avoid taking notice of her. The curvy redhead _claimed_ that she was as straight as an arrow, but when we had 'practiced kissing' in middle school she had gotten even more worked up than I had. Lying in bed together that night, the redheaded teen had been so incredibly turned on by our sapphic tryst that I'd had to pull her sticky little hand out of my panties and push her away just to catch a breath. I had immediately regretted my rash action, but I'd been young and overwhelmed… not to mention out of breath. Maybe my very best friend had thought that pulling away from the heated clinch we'd shared had been me _rejecting_ her? I paused; certainly, we hadn't indulged in any activities like _that_ , since that night. I resolved to talk to Emma about the moment we had shared, to let her know that I was _very_ willing to pick up where we'd left off.

And then there was the weird, taboo longing that I'd been harboring for Annette… For the woman that I now thought of as my _mother_... Yeah, it was _definitely_ not the time to work through _that_ particular issue right now.

Had I been dropped into the canon Wormverse, or was I _actually_ in a particularly twisted harem anime? At times like this it was hard to tell.

I paused my introspection and climbed out of bed. I looked down at my nightgown clad body, admiring the erotic lines I'd etched into my new form. Now that my mind was fully merged, I had a much greater appreciation for the way I looked, felt more comfortable as a girl. I began more morning ablutions, preparing for the day. I might be Sunday, the day of reserved for relaxation, but I had a lot to do. There was no rest for the wicked, after all.

 **.** **.** **.**

Dressed, showered, and feeling better than ever, I descended the stairs and headed into the kitchen to get some breakfast. I didn't technically _need_ to eat now, but I still enjoyed it. Besides, Mom's breakfasts were to die for. I'd decided to indulge my more feminine side today, and had put on a yellow and white sundress that I'd created via my powers from a pattern on the Internet. The light, airy garment had a plunging neckline and the skirt only hung down to mid-thigh, putting most of my long, creamy legs on display. The sheer material clung tightly to my hourglass figure, adding emphasis to all the right areas. Wearing the skimpy dress made me feel naughty, and I _loved_ it.

There were three copies of my mother in the kitchen, two of them cooking breakfast while the third sat at the small dining room table. The seated mom-clone looked up from the schoolwork that she was grading to shoot me a smile before returning to her task. I sat down next in the chair next to her, looking at the heaping platters of delicious looking breakfast foods arrayed on the table in front of me. The steaming dishes were constantly being added to, quickly multiplying thanks to the culinary efforts of the two clones tasked with preparing this meal. Mom had _a lot_ of clones to feed, after all.

I watched in amusement as clone after clone popped into the kitchen to grab something to eat; they would fill a plate and then quickly exit, clearing the way for further copies to get something to eat. As I was spooning scrambled eggs onto my own plate, another of mom's clones entered the kitchen, this one sitting down at the table beside me. I wasn't sure, but she _looked_ like the body that Mom usually used to interact with me.

"Good morning sweetheart," said my mother, a chipper note in her voice.

I was pretty sure that this was my mother's original teleporting clone, the one she had created when she triggered. The powerful Mover clone was the body most likely to be home at any given time, ironically; it was just so easy to go back and forth with _that_ particular power, that Mom usually kept it here between jaunts. I noticed that she was wearing casual clothing today; that meant that this particular clone didn't have work today… Not that many of them did, now that my mother could create upwards of forty bodies at a time. I was _insanely_ glad that Mom hadn't been foolish enough to tell the PRT that she had 'second triggered' after I'd upgraded her powers… They might have done something stupid like declaring her an 'S-class threat'. I _would not_ have been able to let that stand.

"Morning, Mom!" I chirped, my voice light and happy. I beamed at her, a shit eating grin on my face. God, it just felt so _good_ to be sane. How had I even _survived_ before now? Mom leaned forward, enveloping me in a big hug. I squeezed her tightly, returning her impromptu display of affection.

" _Someone_ is in a good mood today," she noted. "Did a cute boy ask you out?" Mom gave me a big grin, her eyes sparkling with mirth. "Frankly Taylor, with the way you've blossomed over the last year, I'm surprised that it didn't happen sooner…"

She muttered the last part under her breath, giving my curvy body a long, assessing look. I blushed under her gaze, my dirty, perverted mind wondering for a moment if my own mother was 'checking me out'. ' _Of course_ she isn't,' I decided, 'I'm sure that my mom isn't a huge fucking pervert like I am.'

"Mom! I _am not_ dating a boy," I told her primly. Should I tell her that I only really liked girls? Well, I was _also_ attracted to traps, tgirls, and other people with bodies like mine, too, but I didn't really want to get into the nitty-gritty of my sexual preferences with my mother… at least not right away.

Mom and I had always been extremely close before my other self and I had merged together. The old Taylor would have told Annette that she was gay before she even considered telling anyone else. I steeled myself for the task ahead, hoping that that I didn't regret what I was about to do.

Mom must have realized that something was off, because both of the bodies she had sitting at the table raised their heads to look at me, curious expressions on their identical faces. I looked into the eyes of the copy that I'd been speaking with, trying to figure out if this was the correct decision. Finally, I nodded once, my decision made. Trust had to start _somewhere_ , after all. I had no intention of creating the sick parody of a parent/daughter relationship that canon Taylor had had with Danny. Mom deserved better than that. I wasn't ready to come out to her as a _cape_ , but I _was_ ready to come out to her as a _lesbian_.

"Mom, I don't really _like_ boys…" I chewed my bottom lips worriedly before continuing,. "I'm gay," I finished softly. My eyes filled with unshed tears due to the fear and uncertainty that was building up inside of me. God, it would have been so much easier just to lie to her. I watched as Mom cocked her head, studying me curiously. My stomach clenched, and a shiver went down my spine. Had telling her been a mistake?

Suddenly I was being hugged again, this time by all four of the bodies that had been in the kitchen. A quick glance to the side revealed that one of her bodies had dropped the spatula she had been using to flip eggs on the linoleum covered floor in her haste to reach me. I began crying tears of relief and joy as multiple copies of my mother whispered reassurances into my ears, their strong arms and soft bodies embracing me tightly. Upon seeing my happy tears, Mom's clones began crying as well, smiles of relief on all of their faces.

I disentangled myself from all the Moms after a few moments of shared emotional release. I watched as three of them went back to their various tasks, leaving me alone with Mom's original body at the kitchen table. Just before I could wipe my damp face off with the back of my sleeve, a fifth clone wandered into the kitchen and placed a box of tissues on the table next to me. I passed a kleenex to the clone sitting sitting with me, before taking one for myself. Dabbing at my runny mascara, I realized that I was going to have to redo my makeup before I left the house. I should probably just buckle down and create a power for that… but then again, if my makeup _didn't_ run when it was supposed to, then that would probably be a pretty big sign that something fishy was going on with me. Damnit, being the most powerful cape in the world should _not_ be this complicated.

"My precious little girl, " she cooed, stroking my hair. "I'm _very_ happy that you trusted me enough to share this with me, sweetheart," Mom softly told me. She looked into my eyes for a moment, a contemplative look on her face. Slowly, her expression changed from considering to amused.

"I've never told you this, but I'm not exactly 'straight' myself. I'm bisexual," my mother told me casually, as if the bomb she had lobbed in response to my own just wasn't that big of a deal.

My eyes widened, and I stared at the woman in front of me in shock. ' _My mom_ is bi?' I thought as my brain rebooted. I looked at Annette Hebert curiously, wondering what other revelations this morning would bring. Mom gave me a cheeky grin in response to my shocked look; I could tell that she was holding herself back from laughing at me. I must have looked _ridiculous_ to have elicited such a strong response from her. Vaguely, I realized that Mom was talking again.

"I was just a little bit older than you are now when I first realized that I didn't just find my _male_ classmates attractive, but the _female_ ones as well. It was a very confusing time in my life, and to this day I still wish that I'd had someone who I could have talked things over with." She looked sad when she finished uttering these words, but she continued on, finishing her thought.

"It took me _a long time_ to come to terms with my sexuality on my own; it wasn't until college that I even _thought_ about dating someone." Mom looked at me with a soft smile on her beautiful face, and then continued when I'd had a moment to digest what she'd told me.

"When I went off to college, I finally felt _free_ …. Free enough to experiment, to be _myself_. I dated a small number of people during my freshman year, both young men _and_ women. I realized that I found both genders equally appealing, though in different ways... if that makes any sense," explained Mom. A wistful look settled across her face as she looked into her past though the window of her memory. As I observed her, I noticed that my mother's eyes begin to grow moist.

"I had my first real romance during the summer after my first year in college. We had both stayed on campus to take summer classes; me because I didn't _ever_ want to go home again, not to _those_ people…" Mom whispered the last part, the same look of pain and shame that I'd seen several times before transforming her expressive face. It was the same look that she _always_ got when anything about her life before college was mentioned.

I recalled the turbulent, abusive relationship that my mother had with _her own_ parents. Mom had never shared any actual details of what her mother and father had been like… of what they had done to illicit such a poignant response in such a normally upbeat woman. I could tell by the tone that my mother used when they were brought up that some _very_ _bad_ things had happened to her in that house. I had never met my maternal grandparents... and I suspected that I never would.

" _She_ stayed behind-" I startled visibly at the gender specific pronoun. Mom grinned at my surprise, making my face light up in embarrassment. "-because she wanted to finish her bachelor's as soon as possible. She was all set to complete her undergraduate degree in only _two years_ so that she could start working on her doctorate. She was always talking about ' _going places_ '... the way other people talk about religion. In her mind, having a well rounded education was synonymous with attaining spiritual enlightenment; a form of perfection that would allow her to one day live a perfect, balanced life." Mom's gaze brushed over my face, her eye full of amusement; a soft smile rounded out her nostalgia fueled serenity.

"The first person I fell in love with was a girl named Taylor Jameson, and if things had gone just a _little_ differently then I would have wound up marrying her instead of your father." Mom's face was full of both happiness and pain, longing and whimsy.

The curiosity that had built up within my body was a physical force; I longed to ask my mother question after question, until each and every one of them had been satisfied. There was a moment of pause during which I attempted to compose myself. It was no use; one of the questions that I absolutely _had_ to know the answer to burst from my lips.

"Did you name me after her?" I asked my mother, my eyes wide. This was beyond _anything_ that I had expected when I had been considering whether or not to tell Mom about my sexuality. I had been fairly sure that she would be accept me, but I never would have _dreamed_ that _my own mother_ would have had an intimate relationship with another woman… that she was _like me_. Mom smiled warmly at my abrupt inquiry.

"Yes," she replied instantly, "You are named after her. When I lost her, it felt like the world had ended… like everything good in the entirety of existence had been torn from me." Mom gave me a sad smile. "I met your father a couple of years later, and discovered that I _could_ love again. Our relationship was different than the one I had with Taylor… Less intense, and more comfortable. Loving Taylor was like riding an out of control roller coaster, sometimes it felt like I didn't have any power over what I was feeling, where our relationship was going… It was terribly scary, but I _loved every minute_ of it." Mom paused for a second, her face contemplative.

"Falling in love with your father was... different. _Sweeter_ , somehow. His kindness was something I needed, I think, and every second I spent with him was so honest and sincere. I couldn't help but fall in love with him, though it took months instead of minutes." Mom paused, a fleeting look of anguish overtaking her loveliness, before fading away as if it had never been. I took her hand into my own when I saw a fat tear begin working its way from the corner of her eye.

"Losing _her_ … and then _your father_..." The brunette woman, with hair and face so similar to mine, sniffed. She dabbed at the corner of her eye with a tissue that appeared in her hand as if by magic. "I thought I'd never have to go through that again, not after the first time. It took nearly everything I had to keep on going, to keep taking care of you the way a parent _should_ , after losing Danny." I stood up and held my mother as she gently wept, taking care to keep my super strength deactivated. Mom quickly pulled herself together. Straightening her rumpled blouse and drying her eyes, she soon looked like she hadn't been crying at all. I envied her that; with my makeup in streaks, I must have looked awful.

"I'm so _sorry_ , sweetheart… We were talking about _you_... not _me_. Thinking about them both, together, was just too much." She looked regretful. I patted her back reassuringly, sitting down on the kitchen chair once again.

"It's OK, mom; I'm the one who _asked_ , after all. I'm… _wow_ , I'm still kind of in shock, I guess, that you had a relationship with another woman. I thought that you would be OK with my being a lesbian, but I never would have guessed that you liked girls yourself!" I paused, chewing on my lower lip as I tried to find a good way to phrase my next question. I decided to go with the direct method. "What happened to your Taylor?" Mom looked at me fondly.

"Honey, _you are_ 'my' Taylor." She looked pensive. "Do you remember when I told you that I was involved in the feminist movement, back in college?" Mom looked a bit worried when she asked her question, her eyes sliding away from my own when I tried to meet her gaze.

"Yeah. You were a part of Lustrum's gang, right?" Curiosity filled my voice as I inquired about my mother's checkered past; she hadn't talked about it much.

I think the only reason that Mom had revealed her indiscretions to me in the first place was because Dad, _Taylor's_ dad, that is, had slipped up and blurted out something about Mom being a part of an infamous neo-feminist rally-turned-riot that took place in the early 1990's. I'd badgered the both of them until Mom finally gave me some of the details surrounding the event... including the fact that my own mother had acted as a _henchwoman_ for a real, live _supervillain_. I was beginning to think that she hadn't given me the full story.

"We weren't a _gang_ , sweetheart, we were just…" she trailed off, shaking her head and sighing. " _Why_ things happened the way they did isn't really all that important. The day after the Cambridge rally, in October of 1992, Taylor was arrested. The trial was short, and the sentence delivered swiftly… a little _too_ swiftly, if you ask me. It all took place behind closed doors, and no part of it was open to the public. She was sentenced to prison and locked up before a week was up." Mom looked desperately unhappy about having to recount this, and I a part of me felt bad for asking. Most of me however, was _angry_.

"What!? They sent her to prison just for being part of Lustrum's gang? It's been almost _twenty years_ , Mom! Why hasn't she been released?" I wondered if Mom's Taylor hadn't accidentally killed someone during the riot, or something like that. Maybe she'd been one of Lustrum's lieutenants? Mom looked at me sadly.

"After the riots, it was found that some of Lustrum's more... _disturbed..._ followers had kidnapped half a dozen young men during the rally. While the rest of us were out protesting, they…" Mom looked at me, her face pale. "They _mutilated_ those poor boys, Taylor. Turned them into castratos." She wiped away another tear. "None of the people in charge of the movement knew anything about it, including Lustrum, but they blamed her anyway. They decided to make an example out of her; throw the book at her, to make it so that parahuman criminals would think twice before harming normal people." Mom was avoiding my eyes again, and now… _now_ I was beginning to understand. A look of dawning comprehension spread across my face as the puzzle pieces clicked together in my head. I wanted to be sure, though.

"Wait as second... Mom... You're not saying that _she was_...?" I paused, my mouth refusing to form the words. Mom looked me straight in the eyes, her expression full of remembered pain.

"Yes... The woman I fell in love with was Lustrum. And she was in love with me." A pregnant pause surrounded us, the silence only broken by the sound of the sizzling sausage links that Mom's clones were cooking up mere feet from where we sat. They could have been worlds away, for all it mattered… right now, there was only me and the woman sitting at the kitchen table nearby. I was in shock at the revelations that my mother had just shared with me. My mind was totally locked up at the thought that Annette Hebert's first love had not only been a _woman_ , but also a _supervillainess_.

Other kids _did not_ have to deal with shit like this.

"Holy _fuck_." I heard myself blurt out. I really didn't know what else to say. Mom looked sad and sighed, making me feel bad about my outburst.

"How positively _eloquent_ , Taylor," replied Mom dryly.

I snorted in laughter at my mother's acerbic words, which in turn made _her_ chuckle… which made _me_ laugh out loud. Before I knew it, Mom and I were clinging to each other tightly and howling hysterically. My big, braless breasts wobbled and bounced alarmingly, bumping into my mother's more modest bosom as uncontrollable belts of laughter rocked my body. Mom was no better; she was simultaneously crying and cackling like a lunatic, releasing all of the overcharged emotions that she'd been accumulating for _who knows_ how long into to air.

Slowly, our cathartic levity wound down. Soon enough Mom and I were back to normal; once more two ladies sitting at a kitchen table in companionable placidity. Despite being red, tearstreaked, and a bit out of breath Mom looked better than she had in ages. The emotional release seemed to have done her some good; I hadn't seen her appear this relaxed in a long time.

"Thank you for trusting me enough to come out to me, Taylor," said Mom solemnly. "You _know_ that I'll always love you unconditionally, no matter _what_." A lovely smile stretched across her still-rosy face. I returned the smile with interest.

"I know, Mom… And thank _you_ for telling me about Lustrum; about your past... Digging that stuff up can't have been easy," I remarked.

After the secrets we'd shared I felt closer to my mother than I had in months. It was nice to think of her _as_ my mother again, and not just the exceptionally good looking older woman who I happened to share a home with. I found that even though Annette was my mother, I was still interested in her as a woman. The startlingly intense emotions that I felt for her were _all kinds_ of strange. Back when she had been a veritable stranger and I was just playing the _part_ of Taylor, I had still felt a little weird about my attraction to the brunette MILF, mostly due to our supposed relationship. When I thought about her now, I felt genuine daughterly love, in addition to intense sexual attraction and romantic interest. It was _very_ confusing, especially because of just how _right_ it felt. I would need to spend some time sorting all of this out in my mind, and probably find a way to get over it. I seriously doubted that Annette would return my socially unacceptable affections.

" _I love you_ , Taylor," said Mom warmly.

"I love you too, Mom," I replied. Warmth suffused my being at the knowledge that she _really did_ love me. My TattleSense™ told me that I was, unambiguously, the _most important thing in the world_ to this beautiful woman.

Mom reached toward me for a hug, so I obligingly stood up from my seat and embraced the sweet, wonderful woman who had made my day with her kindness and honesty. When we were at less than arm's length, I leaned in to give my mother a kiss on the cheek, something that my Taylor-self had done a million times before. Mom must have had a similar idea, because she'd also turned her head to give my own cheek a peck, at _just the right angle_ that her puckered lips intercepted my own. Our mouths met and we leaned into each other eagerly. I wrapped my arms around Mom's trim waist and pulled her close, until her lithe, sexy body was pressed tightly against my own. Being of a height, our breasts were pressed together; I felt Annette's rock hard nipples dig into my large, firm tits the moment our bodies touched. In seconds, what had begun as a simple error of movement changed into something else entirely.

That's how I found myself in a full-on lip lock with _my own mother_. Incredulity and shock warred with intense, taboo pleasure in my mind. Electric tingles shot through my body, originating in my lips and flowing straight down my spine to my groin. I felt the monster in my pants awaken, throbbing powerfully in time with each beat of my rapidly pounding heart. Seventeen different Thinker powers activated in less than an instant, causing various superpowered sensory data to slam into my overwhelmed brain, making my already wild thoughts spiral out of control. I kept my eyes closed in fear that opening them would make this incredible moment end. It was _so very wrong_ , but it felt _so, so good_.

I don't know which of us escalated things, but rather than blush and pull away from one another, _as we should have done_ , the kiss Annette and I were sharing deepened. Two sets of moist, full lips pressed tightly together in a searing hot, incesteous lesbian kiss. With that action a mere accident of mistiming, something we should have simply laughed off and moved on with our lives, had become deliberate, fully actualized sin. We clung to each other tightly, nibbling and sucking on each other's lips ravenously as we violated every law of God and man that I had been brought up to believe in. In a moment of reasoned insanity, I plunged my needy tongue into my mother's mouth, the soft pink muscle rubbing and stroking against her own oral appendage. Mom pulled my sexy, well developed body tightly against her own as we necked, proving to me that she wanted this just as much as I did. I ground my rapidly swelling bulge against her denim-covered crotch, my breaths coming out hot and heavy as I dry humped my mother, grinding my semi-erect cock against the pussy that I had come out of fifteen years earlier. We had already passed the point of no return. It had taken less than a minute to go from 'mistake' to real, live incest, and whatever ended up happening, _nothing_ would ever be the same again between us again.

Annette moaned in response to my escalation, pressing her rapidly moistening vaginal mound against my third leg eagerly. The older woman's strong, smooth hands dipped lower from their place on my hips, until they met my thick, sexy bubble butt. Mom ran her greedy appendages over my round, firm backside as we made out, kneading and squeezing my sexy ass roughly. My enormous cock finally grew too large for the tiny cotton panties which were struggling to contain it, tearing them apart and freeing the oversized organ to continue inflating toward its full, immense size. A wave of raw, lust filled aggression filled my entire being as my long, thick penis was freed, causing me to growl into Mom's mouth and grind my fat prick into her cloth covered crotch even harder.

Face flushed and my mind suffused with an eager, insatiable lust, I pulled my mother from Annette's. I grabbed a fistful of the older woman's beautiful brown curls, so alike to my own, and pulled her head to the size, exposing the soft, creamy skin of her graceful neck. As I lower my mouth to kiss and suck on the juncture of her neck and shoulder, I noted the dopey, glazed look in her pleasure clouded eyes. At that moment in time, my mother was no longer simply an overworked single parent, or a powerful parahuman; right then, she was nothing more than a horny, needy woman, in need of a good, hard fuck.

I hoped that Annette would be understanding about my uniqueness, once she realized what she was grinding against. I pulled my head from her love-bitten neck, the red marks from my teeth and lips already healing due to the low-level regeneration that each of her bodies carried. I looked my mother in the eyes with a smoldering gaze, my body poised to-

A loud knocking rang through the house, coming from the front door off of the living room. Instantly, the mood was broken, our lust-fueled insanity completely forgotten in the face of cold, stark reality. Mom and I scrambled apart, both of us flushed with embarrassment and suppressed desire. My swollen erection throbbed with need, the large orbs beneath it beginning to ache sweetly at being so cruelly denied. I tapped the oversized organ the was tenting out the front of my dress, before Mom was able to glimpse it, applying a perception filter to the region that would fool anyone seeing it into thinking that everything there was completely normal. I straightened myself up and followed Annette into the living room, to see what had ended the horrible, wonderful event that had nearly transpired between us.

I stepped through the archway leading from the living room to the kitchen just in time to watch my mother open the front door. I winced when I saw who was standing there. It was _Simon_. The composite being that was my current 'self' had never actually met the man, but I recalled him from my 'Taylor' memories. He was a large caucasian man, standing perhaps six and half feet tall, with curly, short cropped blonde hair and a full, well groomed beard. Taylor's memories indicated that he had something of a fetish for the white clothing, which was evidenced by his current attire. Simon was decked out in an expensive looking white suit, with a matching white tie. The tall man's clothing and personal hygiene were immaculate, and he had an enormous, friendly smile plastered on his handsome face. There was not a single thing that was odious about Simon... and yet pre-merger Taylor had hated him with the intensity of a thousand exploding supernovas. And now, I realized, so did I… _especially_ becuase of what he had just interrupted.

I noted that Mom had answered the door using a different body than the one that I'd been… talking with… in the kitchen. I wondered where my mother's original body was. Probably cleaning herself up; she'd left a large wet spot on my dress, which meant that the crotch of her jeans was soaked through. I sighed, wondering whether I'd ever get another chance at showing my sexy, beautiful mother how I felt about her. I hoped so.

" **Greetings, Annette!** " Simon boomed as he stepped through the open door into our living room, not even waiting to be invited inside. I grimaced at the the idiot's presumption. As I watched, Annette worked to conceal a frown at the man's presence. He'd been trying, and failing, to court her for over a year. Mom had confided in me on several occasions that she was completely uninterested in him romantically, but Simon just _would not_ get the hint, no matter how many times Mom had tried to let him down. The last time he'd come around, almost four months ago, she had told him that couldn't see herself dating _anyone_ in the immediate future.

"Hello Simon," sighed my mother as she closed the door. She had a look of resignation on her face as she looked at him.

I guess that Simon thought that waiting a quarter-year before trying his luck again meant that the 'immediate future' had passed, and that Mom might be more receptive to his advances. ' _What a fucking moron_.' I thought derisively. Searching my memories, I only had a vague idea of what Simon actually did for a living, and how he'd actually met my mother. It must have been just after she triggered, as the big dummy had stopped by several times to 'check up' on mom while she was still struggling to adapt to Dad's absence after his death. I wondered briefly if Simon was a cape; it was possible that he and Mom might have met the night she'd triggered… The timing was certainly correct. This was something my memories indicated that I'd never considered before. Well, I _was_ a super-bullshit power manipulator; it would be easy as pie to find out if the goofy lumox was actually a parahuman.

I 'switched on' the passive sensory package that came with Power Manipulation, and directed it at Simon. I'd had the power suite turned off, as Mom's army of clones, with their ever-changing powers, made keeping it active while at home _very_ distracting. Aiming my power senses at Simon, I scanned him. My eyes grew wide as first dozens, then hundreds, then _thousands_ of different superpowers lit up my senses. _Simon had more powers than everyone on planet Earth combined_.

My highly augmented brain began seizing as my synapses fired wildly, sending agonizing sensations throughout my entire body. I used biokinesis to repair the damage from the feedback of _simply viewing_ his powers, and telekinesis to keep myself upright. I hadn't been damaged _that_ badly, but if I'd done this even a month ago, I might have died from the incredible amount of information pouring into my brain. Only my Brute powers and brain upgrades had allowed me to tolerate the massive tsunami of information. The entire scan took less than a minute, during which Simon continued to chat up my Mom, having never even acknowledged my presence, the bastard. At least he seemed to be equally as unaware about me using my powers to scan him.

"Well, shit…" I thought, 'I think I know what happened to Scion after he disappeared over a year ago.' Even as I was grimacing, I was rapidly copying the Entity's powers using Power Manipulation. Scores of random, overpowered abilities began to pour into the ethereal 'power library' contained within the core of my being. I'd managed to copy nearly a thousand new powers when suddenly, I found myself of duplicating any more of them. My library was absolutely stuffed full; no more powers would fit, no matter how hard I tried to duplicate more of Simon's powers. It had taken me mere seconds to reproduce scores of the alien's shards, while transforming them into 'shardless' powers on the fly, quickly enough that Simon and Mom had only exchanged a handful of words so far. I doubt he'd said anything dumb enough to make Mom throw him out quite yet, but I wanted to see if I could copy more of his abilities before the inevitable dismissal I sensed was rapidly coming. Mom _really_ did not like Simon… er, Scion. _Whatever_.

'I need more space to store powers!' I thought to myself. I had thirty-nine PM charges currently, having saved up quite a few of them over time. Really, their main use was to infuse existing abilities with more raw power, or to upgrade PM and 'Gift'... I seldom used them for anything else. It used to be that I could only hold a maximum of 10 charges, and that the rest would be dumped at the end of a day… I had fixed _that_ little flaw in a hurry.

Concentrating on what I wanted to happen, I burned fifteen of my stored charges in one go. I used the enormous amount of pure, distilled _potential_ to upgrade Power Manipulation, modifying it so that its integral power library would have unlimited storage space. This modification took _far_ fewer charges than I had expected, leaving me with slightly more than ten charges worth of energy left over, to do with as I pleased. I used the remaining potential to increase the speed and scope of my ability to copy powers, so that I would actually have a chance of snagging all that Scion had to offer me. Upgrading my copying powers to become effectively unlimited took nine of the charges. I used up the last one and a half charges to upgrade PM's power detection sub-power, turning it into an intuitive, continually active sense that lived in the back of my mind. I made sure to create a built-in filter for my mom's clones, so that constantly sensing the new ones didn't fuck with the ability like it used to; it would simply auto-copy their powers and then ignore them.

After that, copying Scion's remaining shards was _easy_. Two seconds later my body was chock full with billions of miscellaneous Entity-level powers, all of them unmodified and ungodly powerful. They'd all been rendered 'shardless', eliminating most or all of the problems that the Entities had regarding their powers, such as energy requirements and the need for biomass and a place to store their gigantic, mountain-to-continent sized shards. Now, the only thing to do was to try and figure out _how in the fuck_ I'm going to catalog, let alone _use_ the 2.4 trillion new powers that I'd just casually _welded_ to my _soul_.

Fifth-world problems, _amirite_!?

My head buzzing with feedback from my new abilities, I stumbled out of the living room. My mother's eyes followed me as I wandered back into the kitchen, a worried look on her face. I _noticed_ her expression, but my mind was super busy skimming over the millions of new powers in my inventory. I was so distracted that I barely knew which way was up. I head Simon start making an even bigger ass out of himself as I stumbled out the back door; the blond retard had begun actually _reciting_ fucking _love poetry_ to my Mom… Words couldn't express how much I hated him at that moment.

I nearly tripped over my own feet when I hopped down from the back porch, my sneakers landing on the grass covered ground of my back yard. I wobbled for a moment as I stood there; it felt like my balance had been completely destroyed by the crazy, immensely **heavy** sensation inside of my very soul. I focused for a moment, concentrating my willpower to use Power Manipulation again, _needing_ to fix this problem. After several seconds I managed to focus my mind just enough to succeed; I burned another dozen PM charges to create a new power, something that would help me deal with the massive waves of vertigo wracking my body… to allow me to actually _fucking function_ with all of the powers of an Entity inside of me.

The charges returned to my pool unspent as Power Manipulation kindly informed me that the amount of charges I'd used was insufficient for the power I'd selected. My vision was starting to grow dark, and the world around me was beginning to look blurry and undefined. My heart was beating like a bass drum. I simply couldn't muster up enough wherewithal to fix the physical issues with biokinesis… I had a feeling that it wouldn't matter much if I _did_ fix my body, though; it would only delay the inevitable. I knew what was happening now; I'd _royally fucked up_ by duplicating all of Scion's powers, and now I was _dying_.

'Fuck it.' I thought, throwing all twenty-four of my remaining PM charges at the problem, my mind crying out for _some kind of ability_ that would allow me to survive having so many superpowers. A new power formed from the embers of the glowing charges inside of me; an automatic, precognitive, conceptually driven dampening field which was capable of suppressing or hiding _anything_. Instantly, a small, non-corporeal dampening field snapped into ethereal existence, obscuring the part of my soul that contained my power library. The thousands of billions of powers in the library suddenly disappeared from my awareness, leaving me ignorant of the contents within.

The Thinker aspect of my new Dampening power advised me of what it had done, and why. It seemed that my subconscious desire to catalog the plethora of superpowers had caused my powers to begin doing so as soon as the new entries had appeared, taxing my entire being as PM devoted more and more mental, physical, and spiritual resources to the problem. It looked as though my 'Power Manipulation' ability was not completely self-reliant; it had been drawing upon my very being as it worked, draining everything that I _was_ , _had been_ , and _could be_ to fuel its operation. I shuddered, realizing _just how close_ I'd come to death… PM had been _eating me alive_ … and all just to organize a fucking library. I quickly used PM to build a quick safety into itself, making it so something like this could never, _ever_ happen again.

As soon as the Dampening field went up, my body immediately ceased it's twitching and shivering, something that I hadn't even noticed was happening amidst the more evident symptoms I'd been experiencing. In seconds, the fuzziness at the edges of my field of vision receded and my balance returned to normal. Sitting down on the back porch, I slowly went over my body with Biokinesis, fine tuning a few things here and there as my passive regeneration kicked in to help the process along. In less than five minutes, I was once more in perfect health.

"Well _that_ fucking sucked," I muttered to myself, commenting on the near-death experience that I'd just had. I studied the Dampened power library, the repository for all of the powers that I had which were not currently 'installed'. I wondered to myself just what to _do_ about the situation. Oh, I wasn't in any more danger… I could _definitely_ remove the Dampening field and be fine, but the root issue remained; how in the world could I catalog the billions of powers, let alone _use_ them? There were so many powers there, of such versatility and potential, that even my godlike Power Manipulation ability couldn't review and organize them by itself.

"If only there were a way to search the archive for what I need, _when I need it_ , and then temporarily install the power for however long I need it for…" I mumbled. My brain spun frantically as I tried to figure out how to solve this issue. "Hmm… could I make a power for that? Some kind of precognitive Trump ability that selects…. powers… at need…" I slapped my hand against my face.

I stood up and brushed myself off. Glancing around, I checked to make sure that there was no one watching me, making sure to scan for the half-dozen or so of Mom clones that had some kind of super-sensory power. When the coast was clear, I teleported to my secret underground workshop. I took a moment to change into my lab coat. Grabbing paper and pencil, I sat down at my Inventing Desk.

"Whelp," I said, popping the 'p'. "Time to hack together a bootleg copy of Eidolon's power… only better!" Tongue poking from the side of my lips, I began writing down ideas on the paper in front of my frantically. " _Bullshit off the port bow!_ " I screamed. The empty room _rang_ from the extremely loud exclamation.

Maybe I hadn't become quite as sane as I thought I had.


End file.
